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^^;^^:^^^^^^^I^^^^S'¥^<^ 



-^ HISTORY OF^V- 



Suffolk County, 



•^ COMPRISING THE-i- 



>C , V. 



ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE 

BI-CENTENNIAL OF SUFFOLK COUNTY, N. Y., 

IN RIVERHEAD, NOVEMBER 15, 1883. 



BABYLON, N. Y., 

BUDGET STEAM PRINT, 

1885. 



^ ■v!Sso»..jN„ 




3-^bW- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, 

By STEPHEN A. TITUS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 






CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY:— page. 

"The growth of Suffolk county in Population, Wealth and 

Comfort, " by EPHER WHITAKER, D. D. , 9 

"The Formation of the Civil Government of Suffolk county," by 

Hon. henry J. SCUDDER, 19 

"Religious Progress and Christian Culture of Suffolk county," by 

SAMUEL E. HERRICK, D. D., 29 

"Development of Agriculti^re in Suffolk county," by Hon. HENRY 

P. HEDGES. 39 

"The Commerce, Navigation and Fisheries of Suffolk county," by 

Hon. HENRY A. REEVES, 55 

"Literary Culture in Suffolk county," by Hon. JOHN R. REID, 79 

"Evacuation by the British, " by Hon. CHARLES R. STREET, 85 



APPENDIX:— 

Letter and Statistics, by JOSEPH NIMNO, Jr. , 93 

Menhaden Fishery 98 

Incidents of the Fishery 103 

Ship Building and Tonnage -. 106 



INTRODUCTORY. 



PATRIOTIC citizens of the county of Suffolk conceived the idea of 
celebrating the Bi-Centennial of the birth of the County, which was 
organized on November i, 1683. The initiative steps were taken by Mr. 
B. Van Dusen, editor of the Southold Traveler, who addressed to prom- 
inent citizens of the different towns forming the county, the following 
letter: 

Southold, Sept. 7, 1883. 

Dear Sir: — The matter of celebrating the Bi-Centennial of our 
County has attracted some attention during the past few months. All, so 
far as I am aware, who have expressed an opinion on the subject, assert 
that a suitable observance of the event would be not only becoming, 
but an advantage to the present dwellers in our venerable County, 
inasmuch as it would attract more attention to it from the outside world 
and, in addition, afford an opportunity such as it would obtain in no other 
way, to disprove the too common opinion abroad that Suffolk County is 
but little better than a "howling wilderness, " and that its inhabitants are 
from fifty to one hundred years behind the times. 

As I have said, all agree that the event should not be allowed to pass 
unobserved, but as yet no one has taken the initiative steps necessary for 
its consummation. Therefore, on the suggestion of another — not from 
choice — I take the trouble and responsibility of sending out this circular- 
letter, and ask that the following named persons be a committee to take 
the matter in charge, and meet to make the necessary arrangements, in the 
Supervisors' Room, in the Court House, at Riverhead, on Tuesday, Sept. 
1 8th (Court week), immediately on the arrival of the mail train from the 
west, about 1 1 :30 a. m. : 

East Hampton, • — Brinley D. Sleight, Supervisor Baker. 

Southampton, — Henry P. Hedges, Supervisor Pierson. 

Brookhaven, — Richard M. Bayles, Supervisor Floyd. 

IsLiP,- — Seth R. Clock, Supervisor Vail. 

Babylon — James B. Cooper, Supervisor Titus. 

Huntington — Thomas Young, Supervisor Street. 

Smithtown — J. Lawrence Smith, Supervisor Bryant. 

Riverhead — James H. Tuthill, Supervisor Perkins. 

Southold — Rev. Epher Whitaker,.D. D. , Supervisor Reeves. 

Shelter Island — Dr. Nicoll, Supervisor Cartwright. 

This letter was accompanied by a sketch from the pen of Rev. Dr. 
Epher Whitaker, giving a short outline of the formation and growth of 
the County. 

In response to the foregoing letter the committee met at Riverhead 
on the day named and perfected plans for the celebration. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Mr John R. Perkins, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors was 
elected chairman of the committee, and Mr. Chas. R. Street, Secretary. 

It was agreed that the Bi-Centennial should be celebrated at the 
County seat on Nov. 15, 1883, and a programme proposed by Rev. Dr. 
Whittaker was slightly amended and unanimously adopted. It contem- 
plated several addresses, which would present the chief features of the life 
and growth of the County during the last two centuries. The topics were 
arranged in a logical order as follows: First, the growth of the popula- 
tion and of their wealth and comfort; secondly, the improvement of civil 
government, jurisprudence and the administration of justice; thirdly, the 
increase of education, literary culture and literary productions; fourthly, 
the progress of religion, Christian culture, and the spread of the various 
branches of the Christian Church; fifthly, the cultivation of the soil and 
the increase of its products; sixthly, the commerce, navigation and fisheries, 
including the whaling and the menhaden industries. To these subjects 
was added, seventhly, the evacuation of the county by the British forces in 

^ Q ^ 

To carry out this plan an executive committee of five persons was ap- 
pointed viz: JohnR. Perkins, Esq., Hon. Henry A. Reeves, Hon. Brinley 
D Sleight, Hon. James H. Tuthill and Hon. Nathan D. Petty. 

By* this committee the topics to be presented were assigned to the 
following persons: The first to Rev. Epher Whittaker, D. D., of Southold, 
second to Hon. Henry J. Scudder, of New York; third, to Judge John 
R Reid of Babylon; fourth, to Rev. Samuel E. Herrick, D. D of 
Boston; fifth, to Judge Henry R Hedges, of Bridgehampton; sixth, to 
Hon. Henry A. Reeves, of Greenport; and seventh, to Hon. Charles K. 
Street, of Huntington. , ' ,, . 

At a subsequent meeting of the committee the following persons were 
appointed committees for their respective localities. 

East Hampton— Jos. S .Osborn, A. S. French, James M. Strorig J. 
Mason SchelUnger, J. Henry Barnes, David H. Huntting, Geo. A. Miller, • 
Wm. B. Barley, Jacob O. Hopping, Hiram Sherrill. , , -^ „ 

Shelter Island— H. H. Preston, B. C. Cartwnght, Jr., E. H. 
Payne, N. P. Dickerson, C. H. Smith, Jr. 

Southampton— Hon. E; A. Carpenter, Benjamin Huntting, W^ W. 
Tooker, Charles A. Parks, Samuel Thompson, Henry Squires, N. Hal- 
lock, E. H. Foster, Oscar Howell, Henry Gardiner, M. D. Howell. 

'brookhaven— George T. Osborn, Chas. S. Havens, Henry W. Car- 
man, Wilmot M. Smith, Chas. E. Rose, Roswell Davis, Gilbert H. Ray- 
nor A R. Norton, Selah B. Strong, Thos. H. Saxton, Jas. E. Bayles. 

' Smithtown— Hon. J. Lawrence Smith, Jacob B. Conkhn, Coe. D. 
Smith Herman T. Smith, Wm. Henrv Mills, Theo. W. Smith, Elias S. 
Piatt, Robert B. Smith, Edmund N. Smith, Wallace Donaldson. 

IsLip— W. R. Suydam, John Wood, Wilson J. Terry, Chas. Z. Gil- 
lette Hon Wm. H. Ludlow, Wm. NicoU, Dr. A. G. Thompson, James 
H. boxsee, H. Duncan Wood, W. W. Hulse, Dr. E. S. Moore, Perry 
Wicks, Arthur Dominy, John M. Rogers. -n • td 

Babylon— D. S. S. Sammis, Elbert Carll, John Robbms, Benj. P. 
Field, Hon. John R. Reid, Ferdinand Beschott, Geo. A. Hooper, Stephen 
R. Williams, Jesse Purdy, Henry A. Brown. 

Huntington— Thomas Atkin, Hon. Thomas ^ oung, Edmund Jones 
David Carll, Jesse Carll, Edward Carll, Douglass Conkhn, W. Sanlord 



INTRODUCTORY, 7 

Hudson, Carll Burr, Henry G. Scudder, Walter J. Hewlett, John F. 
Wood, Isaac Rogers, W. H. Skidmore. 

The people of Riverhead had determined to add several popular fea- 
tures to the celebration; a parade of the county Posts of the Grand Army 
of the Republic, the fire companies, and various other organizations of a 
benevolent and social kind, as well as a grand display of fireworks and a 
general illumination of the village. To carry out this part of the pro- 
gramme, the following persons were appointed a committee of arrange- 
ments: J. Henry Perkins, Gilbert H. Ketcham, George W. Cooper, Nat. 
W. Foster, Hubbard Corwin, George H. Skidmore, Clifford B. Ackerly, 
Horace H. Benjamin, Charles Hallett, Geo. F. Stackpole, Oliver A. Terry, 
Walter E. Gerard, Geo. Raynor, Timothy M. Griffing, Ahaz Bradley, 
Nathan D. Petty, James H. Tuthill, John R. Perkins, Simeon S. Hawkins, 
J. Edward Wells, Charles M. Blydenburgh, David F. Vail, Rev. W. I. 
Chalmers. 

The weather on the appointed day was perfect and in view of the 
shortness of the time for preparation, these popular features of the celebra- 
tion were remarkably successful, and eminently honorable to all engaged 
therein. The parade was orderly and beautiful. The decorations were 
appropriate and tasteful. The fireworks were splendid. The illumina- 
tions were brilliant, and marked by a charming variety and originality. 

The meetings afternoon and evening were held in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, Hon. William Nicoll, of Islip, presiding. 

The musical part of the programme was assigned to the efficient di- 
rection and leadership of Prof D. P. Horton, of Southold. He was 
specially aided by a quartette of gentlemen from Greenport. The selec- 
tions were judicious and the singing praiseworthy. One of the pieces was 
a grand choral, printed in the appendix to the Horton family Bible, which 
was brought to Southold about 1640, and which is now in the possession 
of ex-Sheriff Hon. Silas Horton, who is in his 90th year. Another of the 
pieces, the Pilgrims' Planting, is one of Professor Horton's many and ex- 
cellent compositions. It was rendered by the choir with much skill and 
spirit. 

It was deemed advisable to preserve the speeches delivered on the oc- 
casion as they contained matter of historical interest compiled carefully 
and for the first time collected together for the public. 

Everything that experience could suggest has been done to secure the 
greatest accuracy so that the publisher feels confident in presenting this book 
to the public, he is placing before them a complete and authentic history of 
the County of Suffolk. 

Babylon, Dec. i, 1884. 



THE GROWTH OF SUFFOLK COUNTY 

IK 

POPULATION, WEALTH AND COMFORT. 

BY 

fipHER "S®^HITAKER, S. S. 



THERE is very generally a close relation between the character and 
condition of men and the soil on which they dwell, which they culti- 
vate; and whose products afford them food and sustenance. 

The climate in which they live, the air which they breathe, whether 
cold or hot, dry or moist, rare or dense, must also greatly affect their in- 
crease in number, as well as their health, longevity, thrift and comfort. 

It would be vain to seek among the grand and lofty mountains for 
men of softness and delicate sensibilities. Mountaineers are generallv 
courageous, resolute, often harsh and stern. It is the dwellers upon 
broad, fertile, sunny plains, who have feeble frames, smooth features, in- 
,ert habits, and subtle and sensuous dispositions. Those who live neigh- 
bors to the sea, may feel the attractions of its grandeur and vastness, and 
be as venturesome and daring as those who dwell amid the sublime 
heights of the mountains. They may be even more enterprising. But 
there is, none the less, a difference between the highlanders and those 
whose home is upon the level slope by the shore of the ocean. 

Considerations of this kind may be kept in mind in regarding the 
character and consequent growth of the population of our county for the 
last two hundred years. 

In all the higher forms of life upon the earth, much also depends 
upon race and blood. No sportsman attempts to train a St. Bernard to 
point birds, nor a greyhound to recover game from the water; and just as 
little does a horseman undertake to train a Shetland pony to distance all 
racers on the course. Blood is not only thicker than water; it is also 
stronger than training. 

Man's connection with the inferior creatures that serve him, is inti- 
mate enough for him to show, in unlike races, the same difference of apt- 
itudes and abilities for various employments and ends, which characterize 
them. " One touch of Nature makes the whole \vorld kin." But it is 
Nature herself that makes men differ in form, size, strength and quickness; 
in language, and alertness' of body and mind; in all those manifold dis- 
parities and unlikenesses among races which afford not the sameness and 
unison, but the diversity and harmony of tones in the universal anthem of 
mankind. The one blood, of which all men are made, shows its richness 
in producing that variety in unity which is the essential condition, or even 
the source and soul of beauty. 



JO POPULATION AND GROWTH. 

Look at the countries which have been the homes of the world- 
shaping peoples, the great historic nations, to which mankind must own 
indebtedness for all those efficient means and mighty agencies which pro- 
mote the beneficent increase in the number, wealth and comfort ot the 
earth's population. It is plainly seen, that it was the character of the 
people to a greater degree than the nature of the land of their birth and 
abode which determined their course and history. The mountains ot 
Tudea'rise under the same stars that beheld them when they were traversed 
by the feet of our Lord and His apostles. The (}reeks, m the days of 
Achvlus and Plato, breathed the same air which now maintains the he 
of the inhabitants of Athens. The Rome of Caesar stood on the same hills 
that support the Rome of Humbert. The founders of Venice may have 
been driven into the sea and compelled to make their home on a group ot 
low and marsh v islands; but it was the Venetians, and not the islands, that 
created the Queen City of the Adriatic, won for it the richest commerce of 
the world and made it, in many features, until this day, the sanctuary of 
the finest art upon the face of the earth. But why call upon the records 
of the past to show man's superiority to his environments ? It is Holland, 
the free and the rich, that discloses how men turn the bottom of the ocean 
into a land of fruitfulness, and built the freshest and sweetest institutions 
of humanity where once flowed the ddes of the briny, bitter and boisterous 
seal And England, the mother country of most of us, the daughter of the 
fatherland of others here— England may have the waters for her defense,- 
but even more, her ramparts have been the wooden and the iron walls ot 
her'ships and the strong minds and stout hearts of her shipmen. It is 
generally and mainly the virtue, courage, knowledge, industry and justice 
of England, that make the realm of Victoria, God bless her! the- head ot 
the grandest, widest, mightest empire that ever spread the sacred protec- 
tion and immense benefits of civil government over hundreds of millions 

of people. , , ■ 

And what is true of an empire whose territories are so vast that ttie 

sun forever shines upon its possessions, is also true of much smaller re- 

^'^^The soil of Suffolk county generally has excellent qualities; and this 
has tended to increase the population. Much of it has been submitted to 
the plough and now yields the richest products of the earth for human 
sustenance. Much more of the same fine soil will hereafter be possessed 
by the hand of culture, and thus promote the growth ot the population 
Doubtless the increase of both culture and population will advance with 
swifter speed in coming years. 

Suffolk county has a climate unsurpassed for health and comtort by 
that of any place between the Lakes and the Gulf— the Kennebec and the 

But it is the character of the people, more than the tuiturc of the place, 
that has determined the growth of the population, wealth and comfort of 
the county during the last two hundred years. 

Three centuries ago the soil here was naturally as fertile, the waters 
as productive, and the salubrity as great, as they were two centuries ago. 
The same heavens bent over the savage inhabitants then, that now smile 
upon a people of virtue, intelligence and refinement. The same waters 
surrounded our island. The same healthful air gave vitality and vigor to 
its inhabitants. Its bays and shores swarmed with the same forms ot fishes 



POPULATION AND GROWTH. II 

and were frequented bv the same kind of birds. The natural means of 
human support and comfort were not less abundant in the days of the red 
men than they are to-dav. But the heathen people themselves were in- 
ferior to their successors, to the Christian Englishmen who supplanted 
them. They lacked virtue, knowledge, spiritual culture, industry. And 

" Natiire lives by toil; 
Beast, bird, air, fire, tbe heavens and rolling world 
All live by action." * * * "Hence utility 
Throug;!! all conditions; hence the joys of health; 
Hence strentjth of arm, and clear judicious thought; 
Hence corn and wine and oil, and all in life 
Delectable. What simple Nature yields 
(And Nature does her part), are only rude 
Materials, cumbers on the thorny ground. 
'Tis toil that makes them wealth," 

" Industry alone is wealth; 
Wliat we do is ours." 

The people, whose new civil organization, two hundred years ago, 
formed the county of Suffolk, were mainly English Puritans. A few of 
them were Welsh, like the Griffing, the Llovd, and the Havens families. 
A good specimen of t"his race mav be seen in the Wines family, of South- 
old, to which family belong Gen. Wines of our Revolutionary period; the 
Rev. Abijah Wines, D. D. , a native of Southold, the founder of the Con- 
gregational Theological Seminarv which is now at Bangor in Maine: and 
the Rev. Enoch Cook Wines, D. D. , LL. D. , formerlv the pastor of East- 
Hampton, eminent -as a philosophic and religious author and college 
President, and especiallv famous with an international reputation as a 
philanthropist in his official relations to the Prison Associations of the 
State of New York and of the United States. The founder of the promi- 
nent family of the Eloyds, who have taken such an active and responsible 
part, not in our countv only, but also in the State and the Nation, was a 
Welshman. Perhaps the most distinguished family of Welsh descent con- 
nected with our earlv Suffolk countv people are the Sewards, including 
the Hon. William H. Seward, who became in his young manhood the 
Governor of our Commonwealth, and at a later date a member of the 
United States Senate, and the vSecretarv of State of the United States, the 
chief member of the Cabinet of President Lincoln throughout the great 
civil war. 

Among the people of our countv two centuries since were some Hu- 
guenot families of great excellence. Here belong the Gerards, the Sal- 
liers, the Boisseaus, the Pelletreaus. the Fithians, the Perrins, the Dia- 
ments, and others. The most notable family of this superior French stock 
are the L'Hommedieus; and we must regard the Hon. Ezra L'Homme- 
dieu as the chief man of the race in Suffolk countv. The founder 
of the familv, Benjamin L'Hommedieu, settled in Southold soon after the 
formation of the county. It is believed that he came from Rochelle im- 
mediately after the renewal of the persecution of the French Protestants 
imder Louis XIV in 1685. He was a merchant, who became prominent 
in the place of his American home. He doubtless came to Southold 
through acquaintanceship with Captain Nathaniel Svlvester, the owner and 
occupant of Shelter Island, which was then called Sylvester's Island. 
Capt. Sylvester was a man of wealth and enterprise, great intelligence, ex- 
tensive correspondence, generous disposition and boundless hospitalitv. 
Quakers and foreigners, Frenchmen and Dutchmen, as well as his own 



J 2 POPULATION AND GROWTH. 

countrymen, found delightful entertainment in his allUicnl ami prolccting 
home Here Benjamin L'Hommedieu met, wooed, won and married 
Capt.' Sylvester's daughter Tatience. They had a large family, and he 
lived to be ninety-two years of age. Their eldest son, who bore his 
father's name, married for his second wife Martha Ikmrne, of Sandwich, 
Mass. These were the parents of Ezra L'Hommedieu, who was born in 
Southold, August 30, 1734, graduated at Yale College in 1754, and was 
soon active in his profession as a lawyer. In 1765, he married Chanty 
Floyd. She was a daughter of Nicoll Floyd, and a great-grand-daughter 
of Richard Floyd, one of the first setders of the county and the founder of 
the Floyd family in America. Her brother William became the celebrated 
General Floyd, 'a member of the United States Congress during the Re\o- 
lutionary war, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Senator of 
the United States, a Presidential Elector, and very active and prominent 
in the service of his country in many offices and relations for half a cen- 
tury. He was born in the .same year as his brother-in-law, Mr. L'Hom- 
medieu, and they were several years together in Congress at the same time, 
and also together at the same time in other important civil offices. For 
example, they were both in the State Senate from 1784 to 1788, in which 
Gen. Floyd had been a member from its formation in 1777. They wxre 
also both members of the Council of Appointments and of. the Constitu- 
tional convenUon of 1801, as they had been at an (Earlier period in the 
Provincial Convention. They were admirable representatives of the Welsh 
and the French elements in the early population of our county. After the 
death of the Hon. Ezra L'Hommedieu's wife, Charity Floyd, in 1785, he 
married, in 1803, Catharine, daughter ot Nicoll Havens of Shelter Island. 
They had no sons— three daughters. One of these, born in 1806, became 
the wife of Samuel S. Gardiner, Esq., of Shelter Island, whose children in- 
herited the Sylvester Manor. Mr. L'Hommedieu died in 181 1. 

There were also, in the formadve period of our histoiw worthy rcj); 
resentatives of the Dutch people, and among these may be mentioned 
those who bore the family names of Schellenger, Vorich, Klaus, Alberlsttn, 

and others. 

It would have been marvelous had there been here not even a few 
representatives of the intelligent and enterprising countr>- to which the 
roval house of the Stuarts properly belonged, as did also William Alexan- 
der, Earl of Sterling, to whom was issued the first patent for the whole 
territory of Long Island. Accordingly we find at an earl}- dale such 
Scotch names as Ramsey, Simpson, Muirson, and others. 

But the people very generally were English Puritans and their de- 
scendants, who had been settling and increasing here, both by immigra- 
tion and birth, for a period of forty to fifty years before the formation of 
the county. A few of them preferred the Episcopal Establishment of the 
native country of themselves or their flithers; but far the greater part were 
Presbyterians and Independents. If all did not desire the union of Church 
and State as closely and fully as Christendom generally then desired it, 
nearly all desired at least the union of Church and Town. They brought 
with them the wonderful genius of the Anglo-Saxon race for organization; 
much of the spirit and not a few of the customs of the ancient (;erman 
village community and co-operation; and the priceless inheritance of the 
Engtish common" law. But they brought with them also a full determina- 
tion to maintain here a purer social and religious life, and freer and more 



POPULATION AND GROWTH. I3 

equitable civil institutions, than men had ever before possessed and en- 
joyed on earth. They were resolved on the establishment and maintenance 
of the supremacy of law, in both religious and civil government; and they 
were equally resolute to be themselves the interpreters of the law in both 
Church and State; and this was a new departure in the organization of hu- 
man society. In their feebleness, they found it necessary to exclude from 
iheir own scattered and struggling settlements all those who were hostile 
to their purpose of maintaining the new order in Church and State which 
they had come to found and to enjtjy. In the meetings of the people for 
the enactment of laws and rules for the government and welfare of the 
community, they entrusted the right of voting to those only who were 
friendly to their comprehensive and main objects — the enjoyment of the 
gospel in purity and peace. They were determined that their lives, their 
liberties, their possessions should be under the control of such persons as 
were Heeing from England to avoid the persecution and injury there in- 
llicted upon those who were intent upon more liberty and .safety in the 
kingdom, and more freedom and purity in the church than they possessed. 
In 1639, the freemen of the several towns of Connecticut associated and 
conjoined themselves to be as one public State or commonwealth, "well 
knowing, " as they said, "where a people are gathered together the word 
of God requires, that to maintain the peace and union of such a people, 
there should be an orderly and decent government established according 
to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as 
occasion shall require. '" On this ground, they formed a permanent or- 
ganization, " to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel 
01' our Lord Jesus which we now profes.s, and also the discipline of the 
cimrchjs, which, according to the truth of the said gospel, is now prac- 
tised among us; as also in our civil affairs to be guided and governed ac- 
cording to sucii laws, rules, orders and decrees as shall be made, ordered 
and djcrejtl." In ttie same year, 1039, the government of the Colony of 
Xew Haven was organized on essentially the same principles and for the 
same purposes. Tne following year, in 1640, our towns of Southold and 
.Soathampton were settled, the rirst under the New Haven jurisdiction from 
Its origin, and the second soon after united itself to Connecticut. In 
1643, tfie Puritan colonies of New England formed their Union, and said 
in tne Preamble to their Constitution: " We all came into these parts of 
America with one and the same end and aim, namely, to advance the 
kingdom of (jur Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel 
in i)urity and peace." 

Men of tnis character, with these principles and aims, could not fail 
to be sober, industrious, thrifty and virtuous. Planted on such a soil as 
Long Island's, in this genial climate, with the rich advantages of the land 
and seas which they have possessed, they were bound to grow and pros- 
per. They were generally intelligent i)eople for those times, most of the 
lull grown men being able to read and write, and some of them possessing- 
scholarly attainments. Not a few were venturesome and restless, and 
nearly all desired to increase their worldly estates and make provision for 
their children, on earth, as well as lay up their treasures in heaven. Their 
style of living was simple and ine.xpensive. But the hardships of their 
Condition did not chill their love of home, nor hinder the rapid increase 
of their descendants. The families were generally large and healthy, 
though sufiering from the wants of medical skill. (Plad there been a phy- 



I ; POPULATION AND GROWTH. 

sician in any of the towns before the organization of the county ?) Parents 
often IWed^o see their descendants number scores and sometimes hun- 
dreds They were fit in mind and body to make sure of a rapid increase 
of noDulation, wealth and comfort. ■ j ■ .^ ,„c 

P When the act of 1683 organized the county, it recognized six towns. 
Soutl^M the oldest, was settfed in 1640, and Southampton m the sarne 
year Ea^^^^^^^^ 1649; Huntington, a few , years later; Brookhaven 

L I6SS and Smithfield. now Smithtown, soon afterwards though its or- 
lanizition as a town seems to date from the formation of the county 
^ The population of the county, at that time, may have been wo thou- 
sand persons Fifteen years later, in 1698, it was 2,679; and of this nurn- 
ber 2 1 2 were white people. Five years later, m .1703, the whole number 
was Vu6 Twenty years thereafter, in 1723. it had nearly doubled and 
wa 6 mi" Only eight years later, in 1731, it was 7,675, and without 
rbatemen 'in the growth; for, six years later, in I737. ^t had becoine 7,9^3, 
whenhere were 328 freeholders in the county. The causes of this rapid 
Inlar-er^ent continued; and, in 1746, it had risen to 9,254. Thus, in the 
nrevfeurfortyel.ht years, the resident population had increased 360 per 
Lm n 749 it was 9,387. Of these, 8,098 were whites, and i 289 
were classed 'as blacks^tSe percentage of i-rease - the par of the 
whites, in the previous half century, outstripping tha «yh%blacks In 
i7=;6 the numbers were, whites, 9,245; blacks, 1,045. Ihe enumeration 
if fvV the last census previous to the war of Independence, shows that 
the^umberorthe people had become 11.676 whites and 1,452 blacks, 
makino- a total population at that time of I3,i2». • ^^ ;„ 

Thus the increase of that part of the population which remained m 
the county had been such as to cause the number of the people to advance 
five-fold n seventy-three years. The increase of the people, born 11 the 
coumy X haZremoved to other parts of our country, may have been 
far^Strr in nlber than those who remained here; for our county, from, 
heist 'enerat on of its christran people, has never ceased to be a busy, 
■ruitfu swarm ng hive. Such towns as Chester; New Jersey, and Palmy- 

Ae' Snal Cabmet 'under Presidents Monroe, Jackson, F.taore and 

""'united State Senators Hobart. Smith, Southard, Dickinson SWord 
Corwin, Seward and Conkling also belong by residence, brrth or ancestry 

'° "VoZZs of States. Ogden, Southard, Cor»in, Seward, Young, 

^''X"ngrreatir4;x-ot^^it:. r^rwxr^^^^^^ 

HobarrToVping Reeve, Nathan Sanford and Selah B. Strong as repre- 

^^"'th'oro:ltl°''nrry^?«:matives ,n Congress can be traced to 

^'"^^UrTtK^rSidents of Yale College were thenrselves or their 
incestOTS ctizens and Christian pastors of our county. Perhaps half a 
s're of other college presidents Save been as closely connected wrth us, 
like Storrs and Wines. 



POPULATION AND GROWTH. 1 5 

Of the Ministers of the Gospel who have attained the degree of Doc- 
tor of Divinity, perhaps not fewer than one hundred (in Southold town 
alone not fewer than thirty), could be named who were or are themselves 
natives or residents, or the descendants of natives or residents of our 
county. More than one of these were severally the first Professors of Di- 
vinity in the great theological seminaries of our country, like Henry White, 
of the Union Theological Seminary of New York city, and Abijah Wines, ■ 
of the Bangor Theological Seminary, Maine. 

What a multitude of great merchants has Suffolk county produced, 
like Christopher R. Robert, born near Moriches, the founder of Robert 
College near Constantinople in Turkey! 

What sea or port of the globe bears not witness to the science, skill 
and courage of our eminent shipmasters ? 

It is the growth of population in our county that has been effective 
in producing these men and hundreds upon hundreds more of great emi- 
nence and worth. 

It is the character of the population that Suffolk county has possessed 
and has freely given to our whole country and to the world of mankind, 
that is the greatest honor of the east end of Long Island. 

A population af virtue, industry and piety grows in number as well as 
in wealth and comfort; for " godliness is profitable unto all things." The 
increase, as shown by the United States census firom 1790 to 1880 inclu- 
sive, ranges in our county from some two thousand to seven thousand in 
each ten years. Thus the population in 1790 was equal to 16,440 per- 
sons; in 1800, 19,735; in 1810, 21,113; i^ 1820, 23,930; in 1830, 26,780; 
in 1840, 32,469; in 1850, 36,922; in i860, 43,275; in 1870, 46,924; in 
•1880, 53,888. 

It is proper at this point gratefully to acknowledge the courtesy of 
the Hon. C. W. Seaton, the Superintendent of the United States census, 
for the foregoing figures of each census from 1790 to 1880. 

To fames H. Wardje, Esq., a native of Suffolk county, a citizen of 
the village of Riverhead, who is the Superintendent of the Agricultural De- 
partment of the United States census, I am very greatly indebted for an 
elaborate and valuable table, showing the population of the county by its 
several towns, according to every United States census from 1790 to 1880 
in decades, and also in half decades partly from other sources from 1820 
to 1880. This table is as follows: 



i6 



POPULATION AND GROWTH, 



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Population aJid GRowtit. 17 

The value of the property in the county two hundred years ago in- 
cluded, of course, the worth of all the acreage of to-day. The price of the 
land was then low; but for many reasons the price of horses, cattle, sheep 
and other useful animals was high. The assessed value at that time was 
less than two hundred thousand dollars. It was nearly an hundred dol- 
lars for each inhabitant; but who knows how many persons there are in 
the county now who have each more than the value of the whole county 



in 1683.? 


The property in 


the 


county was 


then in the sevei 


follows : 


Southold, 

Southampton, 

East-Hampton, 

Huntington, 

Brookhaven, 

Smithtown, 






^10, 8iy 00 00 
16,328 06 08 

9,075 06 08 
0,8 1 1 10 00 
5,036 00 00 
1,340 00 00 



There is no doubt that the true value of the propert}- in the county 
now is not less than $500 to each inhabitant, even deeming the present 
population to be sixty thousand. It is safe to say, that the population has 
grown thirty fold in the two centuries, and the wealth five times thirty 
fold. The assessment made by the several towns this year amounts to 
$14,567,521. The equalized valuation for the present year is $15,654,564. 
13ut this sum doubtless needs to be doubled to approximate the true value. 
It may therefore be deemed that while the population has increased thirty 
fold, the wealth has increased one hundred and fifty fold in the last two 
centuries. 

It is not so easy to measure the progress in the comfort of the people. 
It is difficult even to understand the rudeness of that age. 

Their lowly dwellings contained tables, chairs, desks, drawers, chests, 
bedsteads, beds, bedding, shovels, tongs, andirons, trammels, pothooks, 
pots, pans, knives, wooden ware, pewter ware, especially plates and spoons; 
sometimes a little earthenware, and perhaps a few pieces of silverware, as 
a tankard or a cup. Nearly every man had a gun, and a few had swords 
and books. But stoves, tin ware, plated ware of every kind, china, porce- 
lain, queens ware, and all kitids of fine pottery were almost or altogether 
unknown among them. They used no table cloths, and the first genera- 
tion, at least, no table forks. Their log cabins or low houses were covered 
with roofs of grass or straw. These abodes were furnished in the plainest and 
cheapest manner. The wills and inventories of that date show the prop- 
erty of the people and their style of living. They had land, houses, barns, 
fences, horses, cattle, sheep, swine and fowls. I'hey used a few rude uten- 
sils to cultivate the soil — carts, ploughs, harrows, hoes, forks, rakes, 
scythes, sickles, axes. A few mechanics and artisans had the tools of their 
respective trades— carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers, shoemakers. The peo- 
ple generally wrought directly upon the land or the water. They had no 
carpets. Few had any pictures, clocks, watches, musical instruments, or 
works of art of any kind to adorn their homes. Some had candlesticks — 
very few, lamps. There were simple ihiplements for the manufacture of 
flax and wool into cloth, and the families generally had scissors and 
needles to make and mend the homely garments which they wore. 

Almost no articles of food, nor even condiments, were brought from be- 
yond the county— no coffee nor tea, little sugar. They had little more 
fruit than a scanty supply of wild berries. The mortar and pestle were 
in daily use to prepare their grain for cooking. They had no fine flour. 



l8 POPULATION AND GROWTH. 

They hail nets and boats for tishing and other purposes; but how un- 
like those of the present day! Their highways were mainly water. There 
were few roatls and no bridges. The sea, the sound and the bays were 
the paths of their meagre trade and small social intercourse, ^rhev had 
few books and no printed newspapers. 

The destitution and want of the early inhabitants of our county can- 
not be understood, so greatly did their means of comfort differ horn our 
own. 

But though their hardships were so severe, they made us their im- 
measurable debtors. Their virtues and piety opened for us those living 
fountains of liberty, prosperity and benign influences of many kintls, 
which so greatly enrich and comfort us to-day, and which will continue to 
afford intelligence, wealth and gladness to our descendants for ages to 
come. There is no exact measure for the growth of comfort sine ■ their 
day. But it is safe to say, that there are now more and better means for 
it in hundreds of dwellings in Suffolk county than could be found two 
hundred years ago in an}' ducal or royal palace. 

In the narrow conditions and sharp privations of their time, our an- 
cestors here did their work faithfully and well. It becomes us to com- 
memorate their deeds, and to celebrate their worth, not only: but also to 
emulate their devotion to the welfare of posterity, and to increase the pop- 
ulation, wealth and comfort of our countrymen through all future genera- 
tions. 




THE FORMATION 

—OF THE 

CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF SUFFOLK COUNTY. 

BY 

• $0N. $ENRY ■^. ;S)CUDCER. 



THE perfection of human government is the assurance of the largest 
personal liberty with the most thorough protection of every personal 
right. To achieve such a government has engaged the thought of 
the philanthropist and philosopher. Possibly it will not be given to man 
to consummate his hopes in this direction, but certainly it is given him to 
hope and labor for their fulfillment. We hail with rapture every struggle 
that advances us toward this form of government and deplore the errors 
and calamities that hinder our progress or reverse our steps. 

Slow as the development of ruling systems has heretofore been, en- 
couragement is yet derivable from its study. That study illustrates the 
complexity of human wants and the necessity of new provisions for new 
conditions constantly arising. 

The beneficial improvement of an existing political power, the intro- 
duction of a new principle into a code of laws may be, and often is, the 
achievement of a century of struggle and, when embodied and promul- 
gated seems so far the consummation of all reasonable ambition that the 
citizen rests upon it, and ceases further toil. 

New exigencies will soon disturb his repose, and demand greater ex- 
ertions. Thus in the grand scheme of perfecting human government, se- 
ries of measures (and not single and disconnected movements), are ob- 
servable. We have to deal with one of these. We celebrate an occasion 
when out of prolonged, persistent and weary labor of many generations 
there came the birth of a great political principle, a new and grand politi- 
cal dispensation, in whose being, constitutional liberty of the person and 
assured protection of his rights were advanced beyond any limits to which 
they had before been pushed. 

The establishment of a town, county or State, is always memorable; 
but the foundation of a benevolent charter for the ruling of" a community 
infinitely nn>re memorable. In celebrating the formation of Sufi'olk coun- 
ty, we render appropriate homage to those who inhabited its confines and 
administered its public affairs at that juncture; but if we reduced our com- 
memoration to the simple consideration of the territorial jurisdiction of a 
county; if we overlooked or failed to recall and liwell upon the character 
of the government it secured, we would lall short of celebrating that wliich 



20 CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

gave to its inhabitants the blessings of peaceful liberty, social and political 
eminence, and grandest of all, freedom of conscience in religious belief and 
worship. 

Suti'olk County as established b}- the Act of the General Assembl}- of 
the Province of New York, on the ist of November, 1683, differed in no 
essential of geographical area from the East Riding of Yorkshire, as that 
was constituted at the convention held in Hempstead, Queens county, in 
1665, and apart from the assignment to it of a high Sheriff instead of a 
Deputv, its municipal character would have remained unchanged by the 
act, and the mere gift of a name exhausted all that act con erred upon it. 
Far more serious purposes than the affixing names to portions of the Prov- 
ince animated the Assembly of 1683, and these purposes, their origin, sup- 
port and final triumph command our attention in this season of commem- 
oration. A full re\-iew of the steady progress of the organic law ot' the 
county from its settlement to the year it took position as a county, is for- 
Ijidden by the circumstances ot the present hour, simple references to im- 
portant events, and controlling characteristics of its people, their deter- 
mination to frame a government upon the generous ami stable foundations 
of personal liberty and protection of property, must suffice fur this paper. 

The settlers of Suffolk Count}- were Puritans. Few of the Church of 
England were found here during 20 years after Farret's small colony was 
expelled from Cow Bay by the Dutch, and found security and permanent 
homes at Southampton; and the few so adventuring impressed upon the 
public affairs of the communities little that is traceable through the ob- 
scure annals of those early days. These founders of Suffolk were already 
inured to the new life of the wilderness. At Lynn, in Massachusetts, and 
Hartford and New Haven, in Connecticut, they had learned the hardships 
of pioneer adventure, and were ready for the sacrifices their new settlement 
in Long Island exacted. They were intelligent and some even learned, 
resolute in pur})ose and fearless of difficulties. There were those among 
them who could recall the infamous decree of James L, that every minis- 
ter in Scotland should declare from his. pulpit ' ' that those who attend 
church on Sunilays should not be disturbed or discouraged from dancing, 
archery, leaping, vaulting, having Whitsun ales, Morris dances, setting up 
May poles and other sports therewith used on Sundays after divine ser- 
vice, ■■ a nd the punishment of those earnest ministers who refused to read 
such declaration as an impious breach of the command to keep holy the 
Sabbath day. 

They could testif}- to the flight of the Elect from a realm where the 
true Word was thus perverted, and the stormy passage to Holland in 
search of a refuge for conscience. 

Others had witnessed the accumulating j)ower of the people of En- 
gland in its struggle with a monarch whose chief doctrine of government 
was his faith in the divine right of kings. And others yet had participated 
in the great uprising against this divine right, and had seen it and its vota- 
ries swept from existence by Cromwell and his Ironsides on the plains of 
Naseb}'. 

I'here were those, too, who had gathered from the Pilgrims the rich 
experiences and conclusions gained during the twelve }ears residence in 
Holland, and the study of the free, genial, and hearty systems of the 
Dutch. These could understand the benefits of a Representative Govern- 
ment, and the value of the principle of taxation through representation 
only, established among the Dutch for a century and more. 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 21 

The Puritans, however, were disincHned to imitation, original in de- 
vice, they were obstinate in adhesion. Theirs was not a disposition will- 
ingly yielding to contentment. Indulged beyond ordinary generosity by 
the kind-hearted Dutch, they were unable to resist the opportunity for 
gloom}' criticism upon the usage of the Sabbath by their gentle hosts. 

They came to the New World self-poised, indomitable, fearing God, 
but fearless of man, to hew their path to fortune, and hew out of that path 
all who stood in their way. It was no worldly fortune they sought, but 
the fortune of grace in the Church, and freedom in the State. 

They were here on Long Island to lay the foundations of a govern- 
ment that should unite freedom with protection, and through years of la- 
bor, misfortune, trial and oppression, they laid those fountlations, and on 
them, this day, rest our prosperity and happiness. 

They brought the common Law of England as their s}-stem of juris- 
prudence rather to draw from its powerful and rich principles whatever 
might suit occasions, than to establish it as the law of their new land. 
The disposition of our Puritan ancestors necessarily inclined them to codes. 
They found in the laws of Moses a system of compensatory penalties that 
fitted their stern and solemn views of individual relations, and borrowed 
from its suggestive principles in framing their temporary government. 

With such a people you may conceive that morality in the State would 
be inflexibly administered, and the early history of our countv assured us 
that no indulgence was granted to the vicious or indolent. Virtue and in- 
dustry were compelled by the authority of the communities. 

Upon what did any authority during the 43 years following the settle- 
ment of the county and preceding its legal formation rest .'' Could any 
man show a commission as Justice under the Broad Seal ? Could any 
man in arresting an ill-doer point to his warrant and justify his act bv its 
teste in the name of a magistrate deriving power from the Crown; or from 
any government acknowledged among nations ? 

"Will you know,'' writes the brilliant and elegant Bancroft, "will 
you know with how little government a community of husbandmen mav 
be safe," and he points to East Jersey in its comparative infancy as a prac- 
tical answer to his question. 

Far more striking, as an instance of a well-ordered community, exist- 
ing without other government or laws than such as originate from the exi- 
gency of the hour, and the wisdom and purity of character of a handful of 
colonists, firm in religious fiith and devotion to civil liberty, is presented 
l)y the scattereil English settlements within the limits of this county Co^ 
forty-three years succeeding their first establishment at Southampton. These 
early societies formed distinct political bodies upon the geographical bases 
of their respective purchises from the Indian owners. Habit suggested the 
township as a form of municipal organization. No statute determined its 
limits, or regulated the duties and obligations of its citizens Society, in 
some respects, was returned to its original elements. In New England, 
Royal charters were the source of authority. Direct communication with 
England enabled the colonists of Plymouth — the Bay — and those as well on 
th J Connecticut river, to maintain a relation of legitimate dependence and 
avail of protection from the powerful Home Government, vet enter upon 
undertakings tiiat government sharply disapproved. Tlius the New En- 
gland settlements were iavored. No charter existed here. The opposite 



2 2 CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

condition was visited upon our ancestors. Anxiety respecting the Indian 
led to treaties with Connecticut, and an alHance for military aid that bor- 
dered upon i^ubordination. but never centered in it 

Here, if ever, was witnessed for a 2:eneration and a half a system of 
petty governments resting fir their existence and power solely upon the 
consent of the governed. Townships erected upon the area of a grant from 
Indian Sachems found their inhabitants compacted in a small locality as well 
for protection and assistance as for the gratification of social tastes. Great 
distances intervened between these settlements, and these distances forbade 
general communication. Thus the laws of townships, framed by no com- 
mon body of representative legislators, lacked harmony, and presented 
differences in penalties and observances. 

The common law is sustained by the foundations of prudence, wisdom, 
and precedent. Its wholesome principles were imbedded in the tastes, 
habits and personal rights of the colonists, but they had faith in a better 
law. The abuses suffered in England were under the administration of the 
common law, and their recollection brought along with no agreeable taste 
the system of jurisprudence that allowed their perpetration. Our fore- 
lathers therefore set to the task of framing laws upon principles that should 
prevent sharp definitions, and dispose by adequate punishment of all 
offences toward individual or commiinitv. Thev modified the laws of 
property as well as of person. The feudal characteristics of the common 
law disappeared from a field where everv State was acquired upon one basis 
of purchase and without pure entailments. If the ordinances reeulating 
personal rights and obligations were harsh, they pointed to the Pentateuch, 
and silenced their opponents by the provisions of Jewish Statutes, having 
Moses for their founder. True to the Decalogue, they imposed death for 
violation of manv of its decrees. In enforcing obedience to parents thev 
visited with capital punisiiment anv child who after sixteen years of life 
should curse or strike its father or mother. They ended the complaints of 
nervous women by sharp bodily inflictions. " You have brought me," said 
a weary, homesick wife, " to a land witTiout Chu''ch or Magistrate." The 
moaning utterance was true, the penalty inevitable. " For this unseemly 
speech," say the magistrates, " you shall pav £t,, or stand in public with a 
split stick upon your tcmgue. " And thp latter barbarism was applied, for 
the j[t, cannot be raised. 

But these laws have come from the people, thev are all enacted at gen- 
eral assemblies of the freeholders of the diflferent colonies or towns. His- 
tory presents no purer democracy than that g-overning the English settle- 
ments here from 1640 to the Convention at Hempstead, in 1665, and the 
institution of the Duke's Laws. If its enactments move us, in more liberal 
times, with indignation, if we view with sentiments akin to honor an order 
of civilization that strangely combined learning and religious enthusiasm 
with vindictive and barbarous dispensations in matters of personal obliga- 
tion, we are to reflect that our fathers framed their systems as best for their 
times, and their vindication is asserted in the blessings that crown their 
posterity. The organization of the town meeting, that simple, effective 
political power that ensure.-> civil liberty, was an institution peculiar to the 
colonial period. Necessity was its source, but its virtues soon embedded 
it in the structure of government. From it sprang the determination to 
representative power in the State. Had the colonists been controlled by 
Ihe direct flow of power from the Throne or Protectorate of Great Britain, 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



^3 



the town meeting would- never have been inaugurated. With a free and 
more kindly government in Holland, the Dutch of New Netherlands \vere 
denied any personal participatic)n in the administration of their public 
affairs. The W.-st India Company vested the Dutch directors with abso- 
lute power. Appeals from their decisions lay to the States General, but 
who dared make them. " If I was persuaded," thundered truculent old 
Stuyvesant to the accusers of Krift, his mercenary predecessor, "that you 
would complain of my sentences or divulge them, I would have you 
hanged on the highest tree^ in New Netherlands. " The colonial annals of 
Suffolk County reveal no such assumption of tyrannical authority. If our 
magistrates dealt severely with their subjects, they dealt openly and in con- 
formity with the law to which the subject had assented, and in framing 
which he had his free voice. He had discussed the merits of the rule in 
the town meeting, and if it fell harshly upon him later because of his in- 
fraction he could assert neither ignorance nor inability to protest against 
its adoption, as reasons in mitigation of its effect upon himself 

To the town meetings of these times we clearly trace and owe the firm 
establishment in our organic law of the principle of civil liberty in the 
people, and the inauguration of their right to participate in legislation 
through representation. From these local assemblies sprang the great Re- 
publican principle of government, and upon them it still reposes in confi- 
dence and honor. Increase of wealth and power begets respect, and Con- 
necticut from its attitude of friendly ally, began to measure the advantage 
of permanent absorption of the Long Island settlements into its body pol- 
itic. The advantages of political consolidation were reciprocal. The 
habits, tastes, religious belief and laws of the two establishmrnts were in 
common. As our ancestors encountered the Dutch at Ovster Bay and ex- 
perienced the antagonisms of characterist.es, they sought for strength in 
closer attachment to a powerful colony with which the\- were in sympathv. 
Had Charles II. deferred his R'jyal Grant of 1664 to his brother fames for 
a few years, there is probability that this good County of Suffolk would 
have formed part of the State of Connecticut, to-day. 

In 1664 the elements of liberal government were fully developed in 
Eastern Long Island. The people had become accustomed to the exer- 
cise of power. Their magistrates and officers were .selected at their general 
town meetings. At these assemblies new laws were enacted. The Church 
received its support from their ilecisions, and such taxes as were necessary 
were here levied. Here, too, applications for admission as citizens into 
the little community, were heard. The simple, but effective tnachinerv of 
government was thus in full operation. A pure democracy is fitted only to 
small societies. It can never satisfy the needs of a large population or 
scattered collections of individuals. (The experiment that failed centuries 
agv) on the banks of the Vistula had taught this lesson to the political 
thinker). Reprtsentative forms of government approximate nearest to 
pure democracy and alone answer the demands of popular government. 
rwent\-four years after thj sjttlement ,of Southampton and Southold the 
necessity for a inor^i central power than the town meeting, had become 
fully ap,)aront. Tlv:: diversil\ of interest among the towns swelled with 
their growing population. A central and regulating administration had 
forced itself upon the thoughts ol" the wise and patriotic as a necessity no 
longer to be deferred, and uni jn With Connecticut seemed the only solu- 
tion of an embarrassment from which popular interests were sadly suffer-- 



mjr. 



24 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 



The Roval Letters Patent under which James, Duke of York and 
Alban3^ acquired tithe to T>ong Island empowered the Duke to establish a 
government, and clothed him with powers of well nigh regal extent. The 
condition of Long Island was represented at Whitehall as surpassingly ex- 
cellent. Among the aims of the Duke the supremacy of this portion of 
the possessions granted him by his brother seems paramount. John Scott 
had moved his cupidity by tales of wealth that were founded wholly upon 
imagination. Careful in the selection of subordinates, James found in 
Richard Nicholls an incomparable agent for his financial work. "You 
may inform all men that a great end of your design is the possessing of 
Long Island, and reducing that people to us and our government, now 
vested in our brother, the Duke of York," wrote Clarendon in his commis- ' 
sion of instructions to Nicolls, and the other Commissioners dispatched by 
the Duke to regulate the affairs of the provinces. Winthrop, Governor of 
Connecticut, attends upon Nicolls at Gravesend before the surrender of 
New Amsterdam, examines his Commission and the letters patent, and 
yields all claim on behalf of his colony to iurisdiction over Long Island, 
and declares it "in view of His Majesty's pleasure to have ceased and be- 
come null." And thus in August, 1664, the various towns of this County 
passed from a state of independence and elementary government into one 
of rigor, method and oppression. However great the difficulties attending 
their separation from other colonies in the parent State the inestimable boon 
of freedom and self-dependence was an ample requital. We shall witness 
its fruits in the Assemblv, whose acts we reverence now. 

The intervention of Nicolls was marked by the Convention of Depu- 
ties from Long Island, Staten Island and Westchester, ,at Hempstead in 
1665. Here a body of Laws was submitted by Nicolls and approved by 
the delegates. This code, well known as the "Duke's Laws," was fami- 
liar to our eastern towns. It simplv embodied regulations in force in New 
England, but in its application to the tenure and institution of office in the 
towns, it wrought a radical change and was bitterly offensive. No states- 
man needs to be taught the elementary lesson that a people once pos- 
sessed of power never yields it without resistance. The Duke's Laws sub- 
stituted appointment of magistrates and other officers by the Governor for 
the old usage of election. To the remonstrances of the delegates upon 
this measure, Nicolls candidly responded that the election of magistrates 
was entirely unknown to the laws of England, and a Parliament of En- 
gland could neither make a Judge nor Justice of the Peace. All legisla- 
tion was vested in the Governor and Council and Court of Assize, whose 
officers were of the Governor's appointment. Petty town tribunals were 
suffered, the overseers of which were subjects of popular choice, but the 
free voice of the people in the selection of their other officers was now 
silenced by despotic power. 

The propagation of the Duke's Laws and the general labors of the 
Assembly stirred the Puritan population of the East-Riding of Yorkshire, 
as this County was styled by Act of this Assembly. The Deputies return- 
ing to their homes met no such cordial welcome as they had chosen to 
convey to His Royal Highness in an address that followed the end of their 
legislative labors. Exactions attended in the train of the new govern- 
ment. Titles were questioned and confirmation refused, except upon 
payment of excessive charges. Perhaps none of ^the colonial Governors 
surpassed Nicolls in integrity, prudence, or fidelity to trust as representa- 



CrVIL GOVERNMENT. 25 

tive of the Duke and of the Crown. Perhaps no successor strove to 
lighten the task imposed by a mercenary master upon his subjects with 
greater zeal or more generous humanity. Under James there could be 
no popular government. His largest inheritance was stubborn resistance 
to popular rights. Exile taught him no lesson, and experience as a 
Ruler, no wisdom. 

The period of eighteen years from the establishment of the Colonial 
power of England over our County, and the establishment of the County, 
is marked by the exercise of despotism and the violation of faith. Love- 
lace, succeeding Nicolls, bore with him instructions to make no altera- 
tions in the laws of the government settled before his arrival. He was of 
a ''generous mind and noble," and there are not wanting instances of the 
exercise upon his part of an enlightened understanding of popular needs. 
His letter to a minister will stand as an example of excellent intent to in- 
troduce liberality in the Church. Upon the other hand he reflected the 
policy of the colonial Governors in his letter to Sir Robert Carr, Governor 
of New Jersey, advising that the best method to keep the people in order 
was, "to lay such taxes on them as may not give them liberty to enter- 
tain any other thoughts, but how to discharge them. " We have seen that 
the Court of Assize sitting in New York combined the powers of the Ju- 
diciary and Legislature. The mischief sure to develop from committing 
to Judges the power to legislate is so obvious that argument will not in- 
crease the force of the proposition. If added to this anomalous lodg- 
ment of power, the Judges are appointees of the Governor and removable 
at his will, you find a form of government in which liberalit}' is the merest 
pretence, and tyranny the sure [)rinciple. The Duke's Laws were endur- 
able in all that pertained to personal rights and obligations, and were 
broad in their favor of the institutions of Religion and the local Church 
establishments. While the structure of these laws and their tendency 
were illv adapted to the improvement of a community, yet they could be 
tolerated and the growth of society not seriously retarded by their opera- 
tion. But in stripping the people of their power to choose their leaders 
and to participate in general legislation, and particularly in all questions 
of taxation, the government instituted by Col. Nicolls gave birth to a 
spirit of discontent and revolt that no force in its possession could allay 
or quell. Lovelace's policy in this behalf, to stifle complaint by taxation 
so heavy that the citizen could think of nothing but how to pay, was the 
reproduction of the oppressive system encouraged in the Palace of White- 
hall, but sure of defeat when aimed at a hasty, zealous, resolute people 
who for more than a quarter of a century had bowed the knee to no maS" 
ter save the Almighty. The administration of justice in localities was ac- 
ceptable when the cases submitted concerned such trifling interests as 
afforded jurisdiction to the elective courts. 'As the determination to re- 
sist a rule that allowed no popular voice became settled, the inevitable 
consequence was developed. The citizen refused to pay taxes under the 
resolution adopted by a general meeting of his Town, ministers joined in 
denunciation of the authorities, arrests, fines and imprisonments upon the 
part of the Colonial Government were sweet morsels to a body of Puritans 
who hailed martyrdom as an assured election, and who wielded the Sword 
with the devout conviction that it was an instrument of biblical invention, 
and with the skill that years of steady use had imparted. These heated 
disturbances arrested productive labor, and impoverishment set in where 



26 CIVIL GOVERNMENV, 

abundance should have prevailed. The eastern towns made overtures to 
Connecticut. Huntington flatly refused to pay a levy for the repairs ot 
Fort James because "they were deprived of the liberties of EngHshmen. " 
The brief period of Dutch conquest and rule increased the sufferings of 
the colonists. Col. Andros, not yet knighted, brought to his post of gov- 
ernment the most odious qualities. Extravagance, injustice, oppression, 
relentless cruelty were characteristics of most of the colonial Governors, 
and specially of this one. The towns were forced to accept new charters 
and submit to onerous exactions. Taxes were levied without semblance 
of authority and upon the personal dictation of the Governor alone, and 
all protests of the people were treated with scorn. The Duke was hum; 
bly petitioned for a popular legislative assembly. He replied to Andros 
that popular assemblies were dangerous to the government and he saw 
no use for them. Meantime, disappointed in the revenue he had confi- 
dently expected from his American possessions, he was assailed by peti- 
tions for redress of grievances, and by representations of the evil lot of his 
subjects. That lot was indeed evil, and mitigated by only a single so- 
lace. The consolations of religious faith present their greatest value in 
the deepest affliction, and brighten most as the hours darken. The un- 
believer is tossed upon an uncertain and stormy sea. No light assures 
him of a haven, for there is no haven for him. Above is the blackness of 
darkness, below the fury of the tempest, on every side the lurid flash of 
Heaven's thunderbolt. ' The Christian discerns light through the clouds, 
and knows that in the severest peril there is safety in the "Rock of Ages 
cleft for him." Through the dark days of oppression undef the Duke of 
York, the pure religious sentiments of the colonists sustained and cheered 
them. Their welfare and the cause of civil liberty demanded resistance, 
and they made it under prayer, and sought Divine aid in its behalf 

The Court of Assize joined in the supplication for a new form of gov- 
ernment, and through brave John Young, of Southold, High Sheriff of 
Yorkshire, addressed the Duke "representing the great pressure and la- 
mentable condition of his Majesty's subjects in your Royal Highness' 
colony, " and submissively praying that "for the redressing of the griev- 
ances the government of this your colony may, for the future, be settled 
and established, ruled and governed by a Governor, Council and Assem- 
bly, which Assembly to be duly elected and chosen by the freeholders of 
the colony. It may be well questioned if the Duke would have yielded 
to any petition or representation from people or Court. He had recalled 
Andros and subjected him to examination for misgovernment. Two in- 
fluences now operated from diverse sources to procure the end desired by 
the colonists. 

New Amsterdam had been a charge upon the West India Company, 
and its example stood as a constant menace to the Duke's scanty purse. 
He was in ill favor with Parliament as well as people, and could hope 
for no relief from either. 

Thus his dread that the settlements in the New 'Wprld would be an 
expense, inclined him to their surrender to the Crown. At this juncture 
of critical moment to the colonies, he took counsel of one of the most 
extraordinary men of the times. The instruments appointed to accom- 
plish important results are frequently as unexpected as they are successful. 
"William Penn, accomplished in the Fearning of the Universities and of 
Lincoln's Inn, polished by foreign travel and courtly society, master of 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 2/ 

the sword, and of such manly exercises as became the son of an Admiral 
of England, had experienced the conviction that God dwells in the inner 
conscience, and come to believe all men equal before Jehovah's throne. 
He was in high favor with the King and Duke. His renunciation of 
proffered honors, coupled with sincere humility, as well as the accept- 
ance of a tract of wilderness peopled by Savages in discharge of a Royal 
debt, won for him such love as Charles was capable of bearing toward any 
subject. His absolute sincerity and non-resistance equally commended 
him to James, who was as true to his word plighted to men as he was 
shameless in its breach toward the opposite sex. Penn believed in pop- 
ular governments. "You shall be governed by laws of your own mak- 
ing," he wrote to the settlers in his new territory of Pennsylvania. He 
resisted the temptation to exercise the great powers of a Ruler abundant- 
ly conferred by the Court with the noble resolution, ' ' I purpose for the 
matters of liberty that which is extraordinary, to leave myself and my 
successors no power of doing mischief" 

Under the great elm on the banks of the Delaware he entered into 
indissoluble treaty with the Indians, saying: " I will not call you chil- 
dren, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely, nor brothers, 
for brothers differ. We are all one flesh and blood." And the red men, 
deeply touched by the testimony of equality, pledged themselves, "We 
will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the sun 
and moon shall endure." 

No act proved of greater value than this of the Duke's calling Penn 
into private consultation upon the course to be pursued with the colonies. 
The advice could be easily anticipated. The Duke adopted Penn's coun- 
sel, and the Colonies were now to have liberty acknowledged if not vet 
I)racticed. Dongan appointed to inaugurate the new policy called a Gen- 
eral Assembly, composed of delegates chosen by the freeholders, and on 
the 17th of October, 1683, its sessions began. On the 30th of October 
the Great Charter of liberties and privileges received the approval of the 
Governor and Council. On the ist of November, among the twelve 
Counties created by the Assembly, this of Suffolk came into being. This 
great Charter of liberties and privileges consummated the hopes and 
prayers of our forefathers. It recognized the People as the power in leg- 
islation. It opened with the grand avowal, " For the better establishing 
the government of this Province of New York, and that justice and right 
may be equally done to all persons within the same," and then declared, 
" Be it enacted. That the Supreme legislative authority under His Majes- 
ty and His Royal Highness, James, Duke of York and Albany, Lord Pro- 
prietor of the said Province, shall forever be and reside in a Governor, 
Council, and the People met in General Assembly." 

Thus was constituted a Representative body to which the people could 
forever appeal for redress of wrongs and administering of right. Through 
all the vicissitudes of authority the recognition of the people as the great 
power in legislation, has never been lost in this State from that time. It 
has been embodied in our Constitutions and borne down through these 
two centuries in entire integrity, and to-day the enacting clause of every 
statute of our Legislature presents it in the form— 

"The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and As- 
sembly, do enact — " 

The Duke ascending the throne refused to confirm the charter, assert- 



28 CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

ing that the use of the phrase, "the people," was unknown in any charter. 
The concession, however, had been granted, and it remained until a cen- 
tury later, when the evacuation of our shores by the Royal armies left us 
to perfect the sentiment and power in the Great P^ederal Charter that en- 
sures liberty and protection. The careful student of history will never re- 
gard this concession of a Representative Assembly as voluntary on the part 
of the Duke. It was forced from him against his inclinations by the per- 
sistent efforts of the colonists in this County. That the resistance of the 
settlers, and their constant demand for representation, wrought upon the 
fears of the Duke, and that he acquiesced in their solicitations, detracts 
nothing from the merit of the liberal movement here, and in no respect 
creates any claim to generous recognition on his behalf 

The strong qualities of character displayed by our forefathers are dis-. 
cernible in their descendants throughout the two hundred years succeeding 
the event we commemorate. No County in the State surpassed this in its 
bold utterances for freedom from the Mother country at the outset of the 
Revolution, and none suffered more severely for its patriotism during that 
period. 

The administration of justice has blended mercy with vigor. The 
laws have received their proper enforcement, but freed from the manifesta- 
tion of personal prejudice or power. The peaceful disposition of the 
population has afforded few opportunities for violence, and small inclina- 
tion to personal disputes. In 1820 Dr. Dwight assures us that no lawyer 
had been able to support himself in this County upon the fruits of his pro- 
fession. Instances exist of sessions of the Court with no litigation to en- 
gage its judicial functions. 

The temple of justice has been maintained in purity and order. Let 
us not overlook those who have presided at its altars or ministered in its 
sacred rites. Silas Wood, historian, scholar and statesman, who from long 
and efficient labors in the National Councils won the affection and esteem 
of the leaders of the day, was at the head of the bar in my youth. Strong, 
tenacious of memory, replete with 'law learning, adorned the Bench. 
Floyd, chivalrous and genial, was here. Rose, brilliant and fascinating; 
Buffet, keen, logical and sagacious; Wickham, deliberate and laborious; 
and he, over whose new made grave the cold November winds sweep the 
falling leaves; he whose heart was in this celebration, and who through a 
life-time of physical suffering did his work without murmur, was also here. 
Were it decorous to touch upon the living, bright examples of professional 
merit and distinction could be freely gathered, but of these we are not at 
this hour to speak. 

We have traced the formation of the County to its sources, and have 
found it consecrated by sacrifices and ennobled by devotion. Let us here, 
in commemorating its origin, enter into a sacred pledge that we will trans- 
mit it to our descendants undiminished in its confines, enlarged in its civ- 
ilization, more memorable than ever in the honor of its sons and the vir- 
tues of its daughters. 




"^eli^iou^ Pi^O^^i^e^^ k^i C!l\ri^tikr| dultui^e 



-OF- 



OCDXJXsJ-T-Y'. 



^)AMUEL ^. Derrick, 



I AM invited to address you upon the Religious Progress and Christian 
Culture of Suffolk County for the last two hundred years. My theme 
has thus been stated very definitely and very happily, as it seems to me, 
by the committee which have done me the honor to extend to me this in- 
vitation. 

Religious progress has Christian culture for its end. The one is the 
path, the other the goal of the traveler; the one the growth o( the tree, the 
other the ripened fruit which the tree produces. The one relates to the 
various processes of breaking up the soil, and applying to it the methods 
of tillage, the selection and sowing of the seed, the attention and care be- 
stowed upon the growing crops, the fcjstering which they get from the 
brooding skies, the suns which shine, and the storms which beat upon 
them, as well as the cultivation of human skill. The other signifies the 
yellow fields of ripening grain, the wealth of sheaves which the reaper gath- 
ers in his bosom and garners in his barns. I am to say something to you 
of the thought, and toil, and anxieties of the fathers, and the abounding 
joy and comfort and prosperity of the children resultant thereupon. " Dav 
unto day uttereth speech. " The days of old are speaking to this day of 
ours. I am to tell you what these old days seem to be saying into our 
ears, and what response these days of ours are gratefully or ungratefull}- 
returning to the past. 

But progress of any sort involves not only a goal, but a point of de- 
parture. There must be, as the philosophers say, a tertninus a quo as well 
as a terminus ad quern. To fintl the beginnings of our county's progress for 
the period assigned therefore, we shall be obliged to go back of its politi- 
cal formation. Our religious institutions are of venerable origin. They 
are rooted in that great movement whicb brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth, 
and the Puritans to Massachusetts Bay. To-day our fathers share the 
honors, as two hundred and fifty years ago they shared the privations and 
the sulTerings, of the men of whom James the First declared that he would 
make them conform or he would ' 'harry them out of the land. " That Suffolk 
County is, peopled as it is to-day, is due to the fact that the royal tyrant 
was as good, or rather as bad, as his word. 



30 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 

Two hundred years! As one stands under the shadow of the pyramids 
which looked down upon the exodus of Israel, or even under the English 
Cathedral roofs which sheltered the followers of the Conqueror, two hun- 
dred years seem but a little time; as yesterday when it is passed. But in 
a country like ours, where everything is new, this story of the exodus of 
our fathers is a venerable and sacred possession. And we do well to 
cherish it, not only because it is the most venerable possession we have, 
but because in its principle and its motive, it appeals to that which is best 
and truest, and most permanent in the universal human heart. It was from 
no impulse of momentary pique, or of disappointed selfishness, nor from 
any greed of gain, or passion of adventure, or ambition of discovery, that 
these men left the old for the new, the known for the unknown. There 
was in truth a divine call, pressing its authority upon them, summoning 
them, as ingenuous and true men have been called in 'every age — as Abra- 
ham himself was called — to go out not knowing whither they went, relin- 
quishing country, and kindred, and father's house, the graves of their sires, 
and the precious traditions of many generations. They felt the weight of 
human tyranny; there was doubtless in many a heart the spring and im- 
pulse of repressed indignation. But after all, they felt like one of old who 
could look up and say: 

'' When men of spite against me join 
I'hey are the sword, the hand is Thine." 

They felt the sword, but they recognized more the hand that was behind 
it. It was for God that they came. A deep reverence for religion, and a 
desire to divorce it from all accretions of superstition and to cleanse it from 
all the profanations of licentiousness, a profound regard for public morals, 
a love for the Sabbath, the sanctuary, the family, and a determination to 
uphold the authority and the sanctity of each by safeguards of just law, 
and pure government, these motives overtopped the feeling of indignation 
and the sense of injuries received at the hands of any human authority. 

In one of the public squares of Boston there stands a statue, recently 
erected to the memory of John Winthrop. It represents the old first Gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts as stepping from a gang-plank to the shore, hold- 
ing in one hand the charter of the newly formed colony, and pressing to 
his heart with the other the Word of God; the latter copied carefully from 
the old family Bible, which the Governor himself brought over with the 
charter, and which is now in the possession of his honored descendant, 
the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop. The sentiment of the statue is true to fact. 
With all respect for human laws the fathers loved the divine. They would 
have faith with freedom, religion with liberty; a liberty as Governor Win- 
throp himself defined it, " to do that only which is good and just and 
honest. 

The founders of our religious institutions in Suffolk County were of 
these New England puritans. There are no honors belonging to Massa- 
chusetts or Connecticut which we may not equally claim for our own an- 
cestors. North Sea was another Shawmut, Southold a repetition of Quin- 
nipiac. Even when in 1664, Charles II., by letters patent to the Duke of 
York, cut off these eastern towns from their political connection with New 
England, the ties of religious and ecclesiastical sympathy refused to be 
severed. Their brethren were on the northern main. To them they looked 
for counsel, and when they needed it for material help, and did not look 
in vain. And to this day Long Island is essentially a part of New En- 



RELIGIOUS PROGRESS AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 3! 

gland in feeling, in moral character, in intelligence, in social customs, in 
speech, in family surnames, as it ought to be, in the speaker's humble 
opinion, in geographical and politi'cal allotment. 

Such havin.;: been the point of departure, and such the motives and in- 
fluences under which progress was begun, we turn now to view the process 
of moral and religious development. The chief formative influence with- 
out doubt, at that time was the pulpit. The ministry was not subordinate 
to, so much as it was co-ordinate with, the magistracy. Indeed, in some 
respects the latter was subordinate. All civil regulations being based upon 
the Mosaic code, and the minister being the authorized interpreter of that 
code, to him the magistrate often looked for judicial direction. The func- 
tion of the pulpit in those days was large. The minister had to read and 
think for the entire community. He was the fountain not only of Theol- 
ogy, but of Philosophy, moral, political, social, natural. No review or 
newspaper invaded his province. The pews had never read in advance of 
the Sunday's sermon. The pulpit was the type of that modern invention, 
the phonograph, which gathers into its ear whatever voices may be stir- 
ring in the air, and grinds them out again with an intonation of its own, 
for the benefit of the curious bystanders. What the ministers were think- 
ing about in those days, what were the subjects which enlisted religious 
and speculative thought, is a question which it would be interesting to fol- 
low out, It was not Evolution. It was settled more firmly in their 
minds, than the everlasting hills upon their foundations, that the universe 
visible and invisible was created out of absolute non-entity in si.x literal 
days of twenty-four hours each. It was not Inspiration. The Book as 
they held it in their hands was the immediate product of the breath of 
God, blowing through human lips and tremulous in the penman's stylus. 
The Hebrew of the Old Testament was, by that fact, acknowledged the 
Holy tongue once spoken in the Karthly Paradise and to be spoken again 
by all redeemed souls as the one dialect of Heaven. It was not Eschatol- 
ogy. The last thmgs to be revealed were as fixed and palpable to their 
anticipations, as were the unchangeable facts of the past to their memory. 
What then were they thinking about ? If anyone shall wish two hundred 
years hence to know what themes engaged the thoughtful men of this year 
of grace 1883, I leave for him now this piece of advice: that he go to the 
libraries of our Colleges and Theological Seminaries and hunt up, if thev 
are then in existence, the Commencement programmes containing the 
themes of our graduates. Vour Commencement orator prides himself in 
wrestling with the problems of the time. 

Now during the first century of our country's history there was a suc- 
cession of remarkable men filling the pulpits of these churches who were 
graduates of Harvard College. These were: 

1. Nathaniel Brewster, in Brookhaven, 1665 — '90. 

2. Joshua Hobart, in Southold, 1674 — 171 7. 

3. Joseph Whiting, in Southampton, 1680 — 1723. Of whom Cotton 
Mather writes in the Magnalia: "Joseph is at this day a worthy and pain- 
ful .minister of the Gospel, at Southampton, on Long Island." 

4. John Harriman, in Southampton, 1675 — '79. 

5. Joseph Taylor, in Southampton, 1680 — '82. 

6. George Phillips, in Brookhaven, 1697 — -1739. 

7. Ebenezer White, in Bridge-Hampton, 1695 — 1748. 

8. Nathaniel Huntting, in East-Hampton, 1696 — 1746. 



32 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS AND CHRISTAIN CULTURE. 

9. Timothy Symmes, in Aquebogue, 1738 — 1750. 
10. Sylvanus White, in Southampton, 1727 — 1782. 

These men, whose pastorates averaged 32.9 years, or, if we make no 
account of two brief pastorates, of four and two years, respectively, more 
than 40 years, were leavening the thought and directing the morals, and in- 
spiring the piety of their time. Our fathers learned from these men sobri- 
ety of thought, accuracy of judgment, reverence for life. They filled the 
civilization of their day with fine forces which perpetuated their influence 
to these later times. 

If now you look at the Commencement programmes of Harvard Col- 
lege* for this period, you will learn something about the questions politi- 
cal, theological, speculative, social and scientific, that were filling the minds, 
of thoughtful men and so percolating downwards from them into the 
thought of the community. You will find that, while they were still under 
the fringes of the cloud of mediaeval superstition in some respects, they 
were fast emerging into the clearer light of modern time. While they were 
still maintaining great respect for constituted authority, they were already 
claiming the right to investigate its foundations, and criticise its action and, 
if need be, revolutionize its methods. You can hardly fail to detect the 
germs of our revolutionary movements when you read from the pro- 
grammes of the middle of the seventeenth century such questions as these: 

" Is a monarchical government the best ?" Afiirmed in 1698.' 

" Is the royal power absolutely by divine right ?" Denied in 1723. 

"Is civil government originally founded in the consent of the people.-'" 
Affirmed in 1725. 

" Is unlimited obedience to rulers tauglit by Christ and His apostles ?" 
Denied in 1729. 

" Is the voice of the people the voice of God. ^'' Affirmed in 1733. 

' ' Are we bound to observe the mandates of Kings, unless they them- 
selves keep their agreements with their subjects.''" Denied in 1738. 

" Is it lawful to resist the Supreme magistrate if the commonwealth 
can not otherwise be preserved .-'" Affirmed in 1743, by Sam. Adams. 

Thought was progressing and ripening very evidently. There is great 
advance here upon that first proposiaon, "that monarchical government 
is best " in 1698. The culmination comes in 1770, when these two ques- 
tions are discussed, and the affirmative maintained: 

" Is a government tyrannical, in which the rulers consult their own in- 
terest more than that of their subjects }" 

''.Is a government despotic, in which the people have no check upon 
the legislative power .'" 

The farmers were about ready for Lexington and Concord then. 
Among these questions here and there appear hints also of that conflict 
which was then in the far future, which we have now passed, and which 
may well be called our country s second Revolution. " Is it lawful to sell 
Africans.'''" No! was the respor>se from the Commencement boards of 
1724. " Is it lawful to subject Africans to perpetual bondage .'" No! in 
1 76 1 . Mark the ominous date ! ' ' Are the off"spring of slaves born slaves .''" 
" No!" said these men of Suff"olk in iVIassachusetts, and of Suffolk on Long 

*For the questions which follow, I am indebted to an exceedingly interesting paper, 
rf-ad before the Mass. Historical Society 111 June, 1880,. l)y the Rev. E<lvvar(l J. Young, 
late Professor of Hebrew in Harvard College. 



RELIGIOUS PROGRESS AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 33 

Island, in 1766 — the responses which their sons in 1866, had reasserted, 
and vindicated, and forever established, with their blood. 

Contemporaneous with this activity of thought in politics were other 
discussions which would sound strangely enough to us. Science had not 
yet passed out of Alchemy into Chemistry, or out of Astrology into Astron- 
omy. Men still believed in an Elixir of Life, a universal solvent, and the 
possibility of converting all metals into gold. They still believed in the 
possibility of squaring the circle, and that the earth was the centre of the 
starry sphere. In 1674 it' was maintained that the starry heaven was made 
of fire; in 1687, that there is a stone that makes gold; in 1703, that metals 
can be changed into one another alternately; in 1762, that the heavenly 
bodies produce certain changes in the bodies of animals; in 1767, that 
all bodies, not even excepting- metals and stones, are produced from seed. 
The question was still mooted in 16Q9, whether there is a circulation of 
the blood, and whether there is a universal remedy. And for many years 
after it was believed that a certain powder existed which would infalliblv 
cure all wounds by being sprinkled upon the weapon that produced them. 

Then turning to questions more immediately related to our subject of 
Religious Progress, we find that during the same period, while much of 
their thinking was characterized by discussion and hairsplitting, such as 
the school-men would have delighted in, much of it also was really in ad- 
vance of the time and touched upon themes that are vital even now. They 
seemed to delight in choppng logic as though immortal interests de- 
pended upon the argument, and yet they did frequently come down to 
matters intimately related to the conduct of life. Three times, at least, 
during this period the question was discussed with more solemnity than 
such a question would admit of to day before the highest court of our 
land, whether, if Lazarus, by a will made before his death, had given away 
his property, he could legUly have claimed it after his resurrection.'" " Is 
the soul transmitted by generation, or is it in every case an immediate 
creation by God .•''" " Do angels have matter and form.''" "Is the Pope 
or the Turk to be regardel as Anti-Christ.'" "If a man is born deficient 
in one limb, will he l)e deficient in the same limb on the day of Resurrec- 
t.on. " " Will the blessed in ths future world after the last judgment make 
usa of articulate speech, and will that be Hebrew ?" But notwithstanding 
all this which seems very childish to us, they were making real progress in 
many ways. You cannot withhold your profoundest respect for men who 
were maintaining in the s ime public way, a hundred and fifty vears ao-o 
that charity and mutual tolerance among the profe,-;sors of Christianity are 
most conducive to the promotion of true religion; that a faithful inquirer 
into the truth of the sacred Scriptures, even though he should fall into 
error, may not be called a heretic; that the limits of church fellowship 
should- not be narrower than those of eternal salvation; that disputes re- 
1 iting to theology are generally injurious t-^ religion; and that the toler- 
ation of every religion tends to promote true religion. 

1 have dwelt thus at len;th upon these questions because they show 
better than any other indices accessible to me what our representative men 
and religious leaders w-re thinking about during our first centurv, what 
they deemed important and vital. They reflect the. spirit and temner of 
the century. They show us that while doctrine remained substant ally 
unchangetl, theological as[)erities were even then .softening. They ex- 
hibit, also, the operation of a principle that is ever true, that as men of 



34 RRMGIOUS PROGRESS AND CHRISTAIN Cl'LTURK, 

diverse theories draw near to a crisis of common danger, as our Colonies 
did towards the close of their first century, the}- begin to grow charitable 
and mutually lenient. 

In 1764 Whitefield passed through Suffolk County on his way through- 
the provinces, awakening generally a degree of enthusiasm such as had 
never been experienced before in America, and such as, perhaps, under the 
changed conditions, would be impossible now. He preached in Southold, 
Bridge-Hampton and East-Hampton, but for some reason, but little is 
known of these labors or of their results. From the silence with which in 
some narratives of the time his work is passed over, and from a few well- 
ascertained facts, the great proto-evangelist of America seems not to have 
been received with any great favor. Dr. Buell's " Narrative of the remark- 
able revival in East-Hampton in the year 1764," a book which holds in the 
religious literature of Long Island a place like Jonathan -Edward's " Narra- 
tive of the surprising work of God in Northampton in 1735," in the reli- 
gious history of New England, does not deign to notice the fact of White- 
field's visit to that church in the very year of which it treats. Mr. White 01 
Southampton, positively refused to recognize him as the messenger of God 
and closed his pulpit door against him. His action has seemed to some 
invidious and unchristian. But in view of the spirit that was abroad in the 
air at the time, I am not ready to take a place with those who charge the 
cautious minister of Southampton with any lack of charity or of fidelity. 
For twenty years previous to this there had been abroad a spirit of discord 
and of disorganization in the churches both upon the Island and on the 
main-land of New England. And this had been in no small degree ow^ng 
to Whitefield's own injudicious conduct and unwarrantable inuendoes con- 
cerning the ministry of our churches. Coming from a country in which 
the clergy were proverbially perfunctory in the discharge of their office and 
lacking in the spiritual graces to be looked for in their profession; where 
the shepherd's principal business seemed in many cases to be only to shear 
the fliock and eat the mutton; it was natural, perhaps, for Whitefield to take 
it for granted that the same conditions existed in America. In entire sin- 
cerity doubtless, but ignorant of facts, he started the cry of wolf where no 
wolf was, and caused a panic of apprehension and suspicion in many a 
hitherto peaceful flock. He raised the charge of an unconverted ministry 
in a somewhat indefinite way, and without intending it, caused wide-spread 
and measureless disaster. Suffolk County had no small share in spreading 
and intensifying the pest. The Rev. James Davenport, of Southold, was a 
good man doubtless in the ground of his character, but he lacked the good 
sense and intellectual balance so characteristic of his earliest predecessor 
and of his latest successor in that pastorate. Carried away by an enthusi- 
astic impulse he aspired to be an imitator if not a rival of Whitefield. He 
succeeded in imitating what was objectionable in his pattern without at- 
taining to its excellencies. He became an itinerant and went up and down 
among the churches like a baleful, flaming torch. He claimed to know 
the secret things of God. He could discriminate .as by intuition between 
true and false professors. He dared to be precise in his charges where 
Whitefield had only been indefinite. He called upon churches to boycott 
the ministers who had been their spiritual leaders for a generation, and as 
they valued their soul's salvation, to no longer attend upon their ministra- 
tions. And as all this was mixed up with some doctrinal truth which was 
like the weight -of the axe-head to drive home the divisive edge of error, he 



RELIGIOUS PROGRESS AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 35 

succeeded in doing damage which was never repaired from that da}' to 
this. Added to the per.sonal virulence of his tirades he made use of a 
noisy declamation, of sensuous appeals, of shoutings and groanings and 
stampings, of picturesque descriptions of the joys of heaven and the tor- 
ments of hell, which tended to wound the sense of true religion in the 
house of its friends, and to bring it into contempt with its foes. And as 
he affected to be an imitator of Whitefield, so he also had his satellites, and 
the baleful contagion spread. There is extant a letter addressed to this 
disturber of the peace and purity of the churches, written by the Rev. 
Theophilus Pickering of Ipswich, Mass., which after reciting the facts that 
Davenport had been expelled- from the colony of Connecticut, and that the 
associated pastors of Boston and Charlestown had closed their pulpits 
against him, closes with this incisive language: 

"I add no more but mv earnest prayer that your heart may be kept 
from secret workings of spiritual pride, and your head from illusive imagi- 
nations; and that (if the Lord will) you may have a safe and speedy re- 
turn to your pastoral charge at Southold, on Long Island." 

It is no wonder then that after he had kindled this fire brand, however 
unintentionally, Whitetield himself should have been received with cold- 
ness in some places, and in others not received at all. I think, without 
doubt, Minister White had the piety and the prudence of his people on his 
side. I do not think his conduct, under the circumstances, is open to the 
charge of uncharitableness or a mere self-protecting timidity. And all the 
more when I find that a few years later, in those same commencement 
theses at Harvard, it was affirmed (1769), that "enthusiasm brings more 
injury to the cause of Christ than open impiety;" and, (1770), that "the 
Christian Religion has received more injury from its friends than from its 
enemies. " 

Nevertheless that spiritual movement known as the " Great Awaken- 
ing, " which was felt in both hemispheres, and which was a blessed renova- 
tion of society, accomplished for the East end of Long Island as great 
things, perhaps, as for any other part of the land. The churches were 
puritied and strengthened. The old half-way covenant system which had 
long been in very general use, and which had introduced into the churches 
a great number of quasi members who made no pretensions to anything 
more than a formal piety, weakened and finally came to an end. Multi- 
tudes were brought out of a religion of formalism into a religion of realitv. 
The facts are so abundantly recorded in the pages of Buell and Beecheraiid 
Prime, as to need no recapitulation here. The " Great Awakening " came 
none too soon to fortify the graces of courage and of faith against the ex- 
traordinary demands which were soon to be made upon them. The lono- 
and trying years of the Revolution were drawing on. One measure after 
another was being attempted for the entire subjugation of the colonies to 
the Crown or to the Parliament. The time was just upon our fathers, when 
the forcible seizure of their homes, the spoliation of their farms, the rapac- 
ity of their enemies, the treachery of their neighbors, their long isolation 
from their fellow countrymen on the- mainland, the compulsory mainte- 
nance of an invading army, and the remorseless brutality of an inhuman 
soldiery for seven weary years, would make the peaceful farms of Suff'olk 
the most unenviable abodes in the land. Let lis thank God that he sent 
them the baptism of faith and hope and heaven-born courage, and gave 
them the bright visions of a better country, even an heavenh-, before the 



36 RELIGIOUS PROCJRESS AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 

fearful baptism of war. And after the war, and consequent upon the inev- 
itable letting down of moiT..s which war brings with it, there came in that 
worse than pestilence of French infidelity. Infected by the poisonous 
vapors that steamed up and floated over the sea from the cauldrons heated 
by Montescjuieu, Voltaire and Rousseau, little knots of men in East- 
Hampton, Southampton and Southold, formed themselves into infidel 
clubs, and both spurned the name, and threw off the restraints of Christ- 
ianitv. But thanks to that same " Great Awakening," the infection di I not 
spread far or take deeply. Than at the close of its first century, Religion 
in Suffolk county never presented an aspect more fair, more hopeful, more 
radiant, since the days of the first settlement. 

The religious character of our second century may be broadly and 
o-enerallv distinguished from that of the first, by saying. in a word that le- 
lio-ious thought was now brought into more intimate relations to practical 
life. And tliis may be fearlessly said in view of facts, notwithstanding that 
the men of a hundred and fifty years ago if they were to visit us now, would 
probably think that the children had become sadly recreant to the princi- 
ples and example of their fathers. The world at large has been growing 
better for two hundred years, and we believe that Suffolk county has not 
been an exception to the general rule. As we look about us now from the 
height of this Bi-centennial year, notwithstanding all that we see of politi- 
cal trickery and self-seeking, of intemperance and Sabbath breaking, of al- 
leo"ed tyranny of capital and unreasonable and mutinous temper of labor, 
of profanity of speech, aind what is worse, profanation of the most sacred 
relationships of life, the words of the wise men are nevertheless emphati- 
cally appropriate, " Say not thou what is the cause that the former days 
were better than these, for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. ' 

It does not come within my province to speak of the growth of wealth, 
the developeiiK nt of agriculture and commerce, the advance of society in 
the amenities of civilization and the refinements of living, the immense 
progress of the arts and sciences of invention and discovery, the means of 
rapid transit and of more rapid compiunication of thought, which have 
made our once insulated borders to be as closely knitted to the rest of the 
cont'nent as any inland county. But there are greater, brighter, better 
thin"-s than these to be chronicled, without which, all these would be but 
an increasing and burdensome curse. With all th's there has been a pro- 
portionate and even-stepping advance in those virtues and graces which 
constitute the Chrisdan Culture, which, as I said in the beginning, is the 
true outcome of Religious Progress. 

There is the fruit of Charity in greater abundance and of finer quality 
than our fathers ever dreamed of producing, from the stock of their relig- 
ious institutions. A hundred years ago a single denomination had things 
all its own way. The Congregational Order, or as it had then become 
in Suffolk county, the Presbyterian church, was virtually the 'established 
church of the Northern and Eastern colonies. And if it did not imitate 
the established church of old England in actual persecution of dissenters, 
it did imitate it in the feeling of contempt for those who refused to ac- 
knowledge its exclusive right. There are those in this assembly who can- 
not forget how, as one after another little knots of Christian believers, de- 
sirous of a freer expression, and a more elastic method of worship, and a 
more exalted enthusiasm than the old forms seemed to permit, separated 
themselves from the ancient folds, they were looked at with suspicion, or 



RELUJIOUS PROc;RESS AM) CHRISTIAN CULTURE. 37 

even called by opprobrious names. We are certainly nearer to the age of 
gold to-day. Tliis century is not so theological as the last, but it is more 
religious. iNIen have learned to allow each other the same liberty in re- 
ligious theory and modes ot worship as in politics and methods of farming. 
They have learned that neither a neighbor's judgment nor piety is to be 
impugned because he sees certain facts at a different angle from their own 
and draws his inferences accordingly. To no part of our land probably, 
has greater blessing come from th^ great Wesleyan movement than to Suf- 
folk county. Seen in advance, it was looked upon wjth apprehension as a 
division, and consequently a weakening of the fagot. It was really a pro- 
cess of multiplication and enlargement. It gave us two regiments for one 
in every town; not cros>ing each others line of march, but enlisted in the 
same cau^e and fighting the same enemy. They came into the field — these 
Methodists — light- \rmed, with lively music, making ra|)id charges, going 
where the old-tashioned heavy artillery could not, and with their swift and 
rattling fire doing no slight execution. How much have they done to break 
up a fatalism, which was almost Alahommedan in its grasp upon the hearts 
of good men, and which often furnished laz;r and batl men their best e.xcuse 
for continuing in th^ir ways of sin and listlessness. 

I have not been able to learn that any Sunday school was stirted in 
this county earlier than that which was instituted in Southampton by Rev. 
Peter H. Shaw, in 1821. It seems strange to us now that such a move- 
ment should ever hiv.j been regarded as an innovatiim of verv dmbtful ex- 
pediency. And yet goo.l people opposeJ it on various grounds The\- 
said that it was a novelty. They and their fathers had got ah^ag well 
enough without it. It was enough if the district school-teacher on ever\- 
Saturday morning made his scholars say the catechism. A school, too, on 
Sunday was an infriiigement on the sanctity of the Sabbath. It was the en- 
tering wedge. It required the performance of labor which would soon ob- 
literate all distinction between common and holy dme. As if children 
were not to be lifted out of the pit of ignorance, or it were not lawful to do 
good even on the Sabbath day! But how has wisdom been justified of her 
children ! The church has learned the lesson how much better it is to go 
tpiietly into the orchard and gather the delicate fruit by hand than it is to 
wait for some gale to come and shake it bruised and broken to the ground. 

Suffolk county has had an honorable part in the institution of great re- 
forms. No man probably had more to do with the incepdon of the tem- 
perance movement throughout the land than Dr. Lyman Beecher. And it 
was during his East-Hampton pastorate that the fire was kindled which in 
a few years swept through the county and burnt the wretched side-board 
social tippling habit out of multitudes of Christian households. Ministers 
and people had been pretty much alike. The jug and the decanter held a 
place almost as respectable and were regarded about as indispensable as the 
Bible and the catechism. It is quite customary now to have a calendar of 
Scr'pture that sliall furnish a text for every day in the year. It was far more 
common at the beginning of this century to fortify against every dav's de- 
mands by a morning dram. "My spirit was greatly stirred," says Dr. 
Bjecher, "at the treatment of the Inilians by unprincipled persons who 
sold them rum. One man would go down with his barrel of whiskey in a 
wagon to the Indians and get them tip.sy and bring them in debt. He 
would get all their corn and bring it back in his wagon. In fact he 
stripped them, Then in winter they must come up twenty miles, buy their 



^8 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE, 

own corn and pack it home on their shoulders or starve. Oh, it was hor- 
rible! horrible! It burned and burned in my mind, and I swore a deep 
oath to God that it should not be so. I didn't set up for a reformer, but 
I saw a rattlesnake in my path and I smote it." 

And the same lusty hand smote down another rattlesnake. The mur- 
der of Alexander Hamilton at the hand of Aaron Burr aroused his wrath, 
and in its white heat he forged there at East-Hampton those discourses 
which needed no repetition, but swept out forever from the Northern mind 
that false standard of honor which demanded blood-atonement for real or 
fancied insult. 

In no respect, perhaps, is the contrast between this century and the 
last so great as in the systematic and unceasing benevolence which charac- 
terizes our religious life. It would seem as if every form of human want 
material and spiritual had now its own organized charity. Pipes are laid 
from the reservoir of the churches' wealth to almost every species of neces- 
sity. They are not kept as full as they ought to be, nor as full as they will 
be when men shall have come under the full pressure of the constraining 
love of Christ. But the brotherhood of all men, irrespective of race or 
color, or language, or condition, is asserting itself A want pressing with- 
in the polar circles announces itself almost instantaneously in the tropics. 
The whole earth has become sentient. Nervous cords cover it as it were 
some mighty organism .quick with tender feeling. Suffolk is not a frag- 
ment of Long Island, but a member of the world. It has felt the throb- 
bings of most distant pain.' It has responded with generous aid. To the 
ends of the earth have gone its money, its bread, its Bibles; yea, its living 
teachers — its own life blood. Through agencies our fathers never dream.ed 
of, but for which they nevertheless faithfully prepared the way, and for 
which the honor is due more to them than to their children, through Bible, 
and tract, and missionary, and Sunday-school, and temperance societies, 
the old Puritan faith is spreading like leaven in the meal. That same old 
faith is getting into the world's secular life. Dropping its hardness it has 
become facile and fusile, using the sunbeam rather than the blast to work 
its way. It runs along the lines of good neighborhood. It asserts itself 
in wholesome law. It makes itself felt in the elevation of social customs. 
It rises in the increasing intolerance of untruth and unrighteousness. It 
glows in the charitable fellowship of men who think diversely in non- 
essentials. It compels more and more the assent of men to the supreme 
excellence and beauty of Christly character. This, sons and daughters of 
Suffolk, is your best inheritance — the faith of your Puritan ancestry. It 
made them brave. It has made you prosperous. It will make your chil- 
dren what you wish them most to be, high-minded, pure, and safe. 




Development of Agriculture 

IN 



^ON. ^ENRY 1^. ®EDGES. 



IN these centennial exercises the subject assigned to me was "The Devel- 
opment of Agriculture." Agriculture, new and old, what it was two 
hundred years gone by, and what it is now in Suffolk county. 
From 1639, when Lyon Gardiner made the first English settlement in 
the county of Suffolk, and within the present bounds of the State of New 
York, other colonies were founded at Southampton and Southold in 1640; 
in East-Hampton in 1649, and extending to Shelter Island, Setauket, 
Smithtown and Huntington, soon thereafter covered by charter the terri- 
tory of the county of Suffolk. At the organization of the countv in 1683, 
forty-four years had passed since Gardiner came to his island. This coun- 
ty comprised about two-thirds of the territory of Long Island. The census 
of 1875 gives the area thus: 

hnproved, woodland, other, total. 

Kings county, acres, 9, no 600 1,174 11,090 

Queens cpunty, " 117,686 29,736 24,561 171,983 

Suffolk county, " 156,760 102,550 129,135 388,445 

Total area, 571,518 

One-third is 190,506 

Area of Kings and Queens is 183,073 

Area of Suffolk over one-third is — acres 7,4 33 

The precise population of the State or county in 1683, I have not as- 
certained. There was a partial statement in 1693, and the apportionment 
of militia to each county, thus: 

City and county of New York, 477 

Queens county, rgo 

Suffolk " . 52 5 

Kinffs " 219 



Albany 



359 



LHster county and Dutchess, . 277 

Westchester county, 283 

Richmond " 104 

Total, 2,932 



40 DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

Suffolk was the third county in the colony in the Quotas. In i6y8, 
1703 and 1723, the population is thus given: 

1698. 1703. 1723. 



New York, 


4,937, 


4,436, 


7,248. 


Queens county, 


3-565, 


4,392, 


7,191. 


Suffolk 


2,679, 


3^46, 


6,241. 


Kings 


2,017, 


• 1,915. 


2,218. 


Albanv ' ' 


1,476, 


2.273, 


6,501. 


Ulster " ) 






2,923 


Dutchess " \ 


1,384, 


i,66y, 


1,083. 


Richmond, 


727, 


504, 


1,506. 


Orange, 




268,- 


1,244. 


^^'estchester, 


1,063, 


1,946, 


4,409. 



Total, 17,848 20,749 40,564 

These results show that SuJolk County in population wis the third in 
the State in 1693 and 1703. and the fourth county in 1723. A similar com- 
parison will show that by the census in 1731 and 1737 this county held the 
same rank. In 1746 and 1749 it was the third; in 1756 the fifth, and in 
1771 the sixth county of the State in numbers. In these periods reaching 
over almost one hundred and forty years, when the State was largel}- agri- 
cultural, the population of this county, chiefly so sustained, was nearly 
one-sixth of thit in the entire State. In 1790 it was the eighth county, and 
containetl 16,440 out of 340, 120 in the State — a little under one-twentieth 
of the whole amount. On the 17th day of May, 1683, the tax of the 
province of New York vvas ti cjd at ^2556 4s. od. , ahtl was apportioned 
thus: 

The city and county of New \ ork to pay 434 

County of Westchester, " 185 

City and county of Albany, " 240 

County of Richmond, " 185 

County of Ulster, ' " 408 

Kings County, " 308 

Queens County, " 308 

County of Suffolk, " 434 

* Dukes County, • " 40 

Countv of Orange " 10 

Thus at the organization of the county its farmers were taxed to piy 
over one-sixth part of all the taxes paid in the then ten counties oi" the 
prov'nce ol New York, and as much as the city and county of New York, 
an I more than any other county that alone excepted. Unless the county 
of Suff"olk was then a producdve territory, agriculturally, the tax was un- 
equal, oppressive and unjust. Assuming its equality, it is given as an evi- 
dence that even then ag'iculture had so far progressed that in wedth, in 
substantial comfort, in ministry to the necessities of mankind, this county 
as an agricultural county stood even with the then commercial metropolis 
of the province, and second to none in the province. In 1693 Queens 



s. 


d. 


10 


00 


15 


00 


00 


00 


15 


00 


00 


00 


08 


00 


oS 


00 


10 


00 


00 


00 


00 


00 



*NOTE. — The County of Dukes comprised Nantucket, Martlia's" Vineyara and tlie Eliza- 
bath Islands. 



Development of agriculture. 41 

County furnished the highest number of militia men by 47, Suffolk County 
the next highest number by fifty-six over the number assigned to New York, 
which latter county came then third on the list of Quotas. 

In the Journal of the Legislative Council of New York, under date of 
September 28, 1691, I find a memoradum of the Address of the House of 
Representatives, setting forth their sense of the displeasure of Almighty 
(}od for their manifold sins "by the blasting of their corn," etc. , and an 
order that the first Wednesdav of every month, until the month of June 
following, be observed and kept a fast day, and that proclamation be is- 
sued through the government to enjoin the strict observation thereof, and 
that all persons be inhibited any servile labor on the said days. Thus 
the uncertainties of unfavorable seasons, sometimes occurring now, clearly 
prevailed widely at that early day. 

In the Journals of the same Council, under date of October 16, 1738, 
among the bills read before the Council is one entitled " An act to en- 
courage the destroying of wild cats in Kings County, Queens County and 
Suff"olk County." By an act of February 16, 1771, a like provision ap- 
plied to Suff"olk County, and later, up to the first constitution of the State, 
and acts passed under it, similar provision was made, until the matter was, 
after the Revolution, devolved, by statute passed March 7th, 1788, upon 
the several towns in the State. Thus, for nearly one hundred and fiftv 
years, the agriculture of the county, from its infancy, contended against 
the depredations of wild animals, as well as the blights and mildews of ad- 
verse seasons. 

Through all this period it encountered a greater obstruction in the 
method of conducting it. In all early settlements, when the axe clears the 
forest and the plow inverts the virgin soil, where ages of repose have stored 
up treasures of fertility, those treasures appear for years unexhausted and 
inexhaustible. It so seemed to the first settlers on the Mohawk Flats, in 
the Genesee Valley, in the vales of Ohio, ©n the prairies of the far West — 
and it so seemed to our ancestors on the shores of Long Island. They 
cropped field after field with little, and oftenerno manure; they fenced large 
farms; they plowed, and raising more oats, and little wheat, and more rye, 
left the land unseeded with grass for eight, ten or fifteen vears, hoping that 
rest would restore the exhaustion of cropping. Up to the time, and long 
after the Revolution this skinning process went on all over this county 
and Island. What manure was made, and that was small in quantity and 
poorly cared for, was applied on the few acres of mow land, and was 
thought to be wasted if put on pasture. The vast old pasture lot, com- 
prising often one-half the area of the whole farm, impoverished and skinned, 
produced a few old bayberry bushes, such few weeds as worn out land 
could grow, and the everlasting five-fingers and briers. Nine pasture lots 
in ten were blackberry lots in my early days. This skinning process, that 
run down the averages of ^vheat per acre on the Mohawk flats, in the Gen- 
esee Valley, and through Ohio, to twelve or thirteen bushels, was per- 
petuated here for nearly two hundred years. The pasture where I, when 
a child, was sent to bring home the cows, was such a vast waste that often 
in a fog I was lost for a time and could find neither cows nor the way to 
th?'m or to my home. With all the abundance of fish in the waters, I find 
no evidence that they were caught and applied as a fertilizer to any notice- 
able extent until after the Revolution. The application of fish, ashes, 
bone dust and other fertilizers, to any considerable extent, upon the farms 



42 DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

of this county, with few exceptions, dates within the last sixty years. 
Within that time the production of grass, grain and root crops in the coun- 
ty, I thinl<, must have been more than doubled by the increased and in- 
creasing application of fertilizers. 

So little change occurred in the modes of farming and farm life that 
the farm and farmer of 1683 might well stand as a picture for those of 1783 — 
the same tools, the same methods, the same surroundings. Grass was cut 
with the scythe, raked by a hand-rake, pitched by the old heavy iron fork; 
grain was reaped with the sickle, threshed with the flail and winnowed with 
a riddle; land was plowed with a heavy wooden framed plough, pointed 
with wrought iron, whose mole board was protected by odd bits of old 
cart wheel tire; harrows were mostly with wooden teeth; corn hills wer.e 
dug with the hoe; the manure for the hill was dropp-ed in heaps, carried 
by hand in a basket and separately put in each hill. The farmer raised 
flax and generally a few sheep. Threshing lasted well into the winter, and 
then out came the crackle and swingle, knife and board. The flax was 
dressed, wool carded, and the wheel sung its song to the linen and woolen 
spun in every house. The looms dreary pound gave evidence that home 
manufacture clad the household. From his feet to his head the farmer 
stood in vestment produced on his own farm. The leather of his shoes 
came from the hides of his own cattle. The linen and woolen that he wore 
were products that he raised. The farmer's wife or daughter braided and 
sewed the straw-hat on his head. His fur cap was made from the skin of 
a fox he shot. The feathers of wild fowl in the bed whereon he rested his 
weary frame by night, were the results acquired in his shooting. The pil- 
low-cases, sheets and blankets, the comfortables, quilts and counterpanes, 
the towels and table cloth, were home made. His harness and lines he 
cut from hides grown on his farm. Everything about his ox yoke except 
staple and ring he made. His whip, his ox gad, his flail, axe, hoe and 
fork-handle, were his own wofk. How little he bought, and how much 
he contrived to supply his wants by home manufacture would astonish this 
generation. 

The typical farm house of 1683 and 1783, were much alike. It was 
a single house unpainted, the front two, and the sloping rear roof made 
that one story. Four Lombardy poplars, tall, slim and prim, its sole orna- 
ment in front. The well pole, a few feet in the rear of the kitchen, pointed 
45 degrees towards mid heaven — underneath swung the bucket, 

" The old oakea bucket," 
immortal in song. Two small windows, of 6x8 glass, dimly lighted his 
front room. A large beam ran across its upper wall. Houses then were 
built to stay. The floor was uncarpeted. The chimney and fire-places 
were capacious masses of masonry, looking with contempt upon the Lilli- 
putian proportions of like structures of these modern times. The mass of 
chimney and oven and fire-places contracted into an entry what would 
otherwise be a hall. The front stairs zig-zagged and turned, and wound 
and squirmed towards the upper rooms. Over the fire-place hung the old 
King's Arm, with flint-lock wherewith he had brought down deer and wild 
ducks, and brant, and geese in no small numbers. Outside hung his eel 
spear, clam and oyster tongs. Close at hand was the upright hollow log 
that was his samp mortar. The barn-yard was near, and in view of the 
kitchen, and on the farther side his small barn. One roof sloped down low 
in the yard, and on that in the cold winter's day he spread his sheaves of flax 



DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



43 



to dry for crackling. All-day he labored in the fields. In the long autumn 
and winter evenings he husked corn and shelled the ears over the edge of 
his spade. No horse-rake; no corn sheller; no horse pitch-fork; no horse- 
mower or reaper — the life of the farmer was literally a battle against the 
forces of nature for little more than the actual necessities of subsistence, and 
with the most rude and unwieldy supply of weapons for the war. The mo- 
notony of ^his life was relieved by hunting and fishing in their season. The 
farmer raised rye and corn, rarely wheat, for bread. He ate fresh pork 
while it lasted, and salt pork while that lasted. Corn was pounded into 
samp; ground into hominy and meal; baked or boiled into johnny-cake, 
Indian bread, griddle-cakes, pudding, or what the Dutch called "sup- 
pawn " and the Yankee "hasty pudding;" and in a variety of ways eaten 
with or without milk. In some shape corn was a chief article of diet. Rye 
bread, the chief bread, and wheat bread a rare luxury. Oysters, clams, 
eels and other fish, with game of the forest or fowl of the air, helped out the 
supply of food in the olden time. The statistics of ancient agriculture, if to 
be found at all, is not accessible to me. I turn to the State census reports 
of 1865 and find: 
Improved acres in New York State, 14,827,437 

" " " SuiTolk County, 148,661 

Unimproved acres in New York State, 10,411,863 

" " " Suffolk County, 230,5561-2 

Showing that Suffolk County contains a trifle less than one-hundredth part 
of all the improved lands in the State, and over one-fiftieth of all its unim- 
proved lands. The extensive beaches and woodlands of the county consti- 
tute its unimproved lands. 

The same census reports thus: 









Corn. 


Bushels Bushels 
harvested. average. 


New York State, 


acres plowed, 




632,213 1-4 


17,987,763 1-4 28 


Suffolk County, 






16,460 1-4 
Wheat. 


580,015 35 


N. Y. State, 


it a 




399,918 3-4 


5,432,282 1-2 14 


Suffolk County, 






10,563 1-4 
Oats. 


199,941 1-4 short 19 


N. Y. State, 


i( li 


I, 


109,910 


19,052,833 1-4 over 17 


Suffolk County, 


it a 




10,945 
Rye. 


289,575 over 26 


N. Y. State, 


" " 




234,689 


2,575,3483-4 short II 


Suffolk County, 


a <i 




5,353 

Barley. 


61,555 1-2 over 17 


N. Y. State, 


( ( a 




189,0293-4 


3,075,052 3-4 over 16 


Suffolk County, 






498 
'turnips. 


14,095 over 28 


N. Y. State, 


.1 ti 




8,1237-8 


1,282,338 over 157 


Suffolk County, 


" " 




689 1-4 
Potatoes. 


160,457 232 


N. Y. State, 


<< ( ( 




235,058 1-4 


23,236,6873-4 over 98 


Suffolk County, 


" " 




3,439 1-2 . 


292,738 over 85 




Acres of grass cut 


:. Tons cut. 


N. Y. State, 


4,237,085 


3-4 


3.897 


,914 1-8 short I ton. 


Suffolk County, 


34,577 3-4 


34 


,758 over " 



New York State, neat cattle, 
Suffolk County, " 



1,824,221 
18,792 



44 DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. . 

Hogs slaughtered. lbs. Average. 

New York State, 706,716 128,462,487 181 

Suffolk County, 13,942 3,060,602 219 

Cattle slaughtered for beef 
New York State, 221,481 1-4. Suffolk County, 2,447 

Value of farm implements and machinery. 
New York State, $21,189,099.75. Suffolk County, $407, 257. 

Fertilizers purchased. 
New York State, "$838,907. 52. Suffolk County, $294,429.40 

The value of poultry owned in 1865, and of poultry and eggs sold in 
1864, in twelve counties, is thus: 

Value. Poultry sold Eggs sold 

in 1864, ' in 1864. 

31,016.40 34,957-61 

41,696.50 44,772.00 

31,195-05 33,125.14 

76,326.50 52,059,50 

38,706.05 33,743-98 

34,607.28 45,978.84 

32,101.24 36,858.36 

80,035.00 45,960.00 

36,500.81 45,082.91 

29,277.20 36,601.30 

45,068.46 41,346.53 

47,120.00 57,003.13 

The results of these figures make this showing a fraction less than one- 
hundredth part of all the improved lands in the State'lie in the county of 
Suffolk. If that county produces one-hundredth part of all the aggregate 
product of the crops in the State that shows, other things being equal, that 
the farmers of Suffolk County understand their business at least as well as 
the averao'e farmer. If the land of our county be reckoned poorer than the 
average in the State, that fact will notdessen the force of the figures, or de- 
tract from the greater credit due to Suffolk County farming, provided that 
production comes up to the average State production. At the outset it 
appears that of all the tools and machinery used in farming in the State, 
Suffolk County held in value about one-fiftieth part — showing that the Suf- 
folk County farmer was up to the average twice over in the value of me- 
chanical appliances in his business. 

Suffolk County purchased over one-third of all the fertilizers in the 
State, and more than an}- other ten counties. Suffolk County kept over 
one-hundredth of all the neat cattle in the State, and slaughtered over that 
proportion of all the cattle slaughtered therein, showing that her system of 
ao-riculture returned to the soil very largely the products, and was no skin- 
ning process; that the corn, oats, roots and grass were fed to domestic 
animals, and thereby the elements of fertility were restored to the soil. 

Although these figures show an average for the county per acre of 13 
bushels of potatoes less than the State average, they show more on all other 
productions. The average of the county over the State is, per acre in corn. 
7 bushels; wheat, 5 ; oats, 9; rye, 8 ; barley, 12 ; and turnips 75 bushels. 
This county raised nearly one-thirtieth of all the corn raised in the State; 
more than one-thirtieth of all the wheat, over one-seventieth of all the oats, 
nearly one-fortieth of all the rye, over one-eighth of all the turnips, and 



Albany, 


$52,466 30 


Cayuga, 


52,911 75 


Columbia, 


59,816 00 


Dutchess, 


77,194 00 


Monroe, 


53>977 11 


Onondaga, 


49,251 05 


Orange, 


63,410 00 


Queens, 


79,597 00 


Saratoga, 


52,576 53 


Ulster, 


55,292 12 


Westchester, 


75,643 75 


Suffolk, 


47,708 75 



DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 45 

nearly one-eightieth of all the potatoes. It produced nearly one-fortieth of 
the total pork, and our average weight of hogs exceeded that of ,the State 
by 38 pounds. Suffolk County is credited with less poultry in 1865 than 
any of the twelve counties I have named, but sold more in 1864 than any 
counties in the State except Queens and Dutchess. Suffolk County beat 
all other counties in the State on eggs, and sold nearly $5,000 more than 
Dutchess County, which is the next highest on the list. 

The census of 1875 gives these figures: 
Improved lands in the State, acres, i5>875, 552 

Unimproved lands in the State, acres, 91783,714 

Suffolk County, improved lands, 156,760 

'• " unimproved lands, 332,685 

The relative proportion of lands in the State and county remained 
nearly as in 1865: 

Value of all stock in the State, $ 1 46, 497, 1 54 

" " " " Suffolk County, 1,879,073 

" " tools and implements in the State, 44,228,263 

" " " " " " Suffolk County, 541,158 

Value of all farm buildings other than dwellings. 

In the State, $148,715,775. In Suffolk County, $2,161,675 

Value of all fertilizers purchased in the State, $1,767,352 

" Suffolk County, 316,737 

Area mown in the State — acres, 4,796,739 

" " " Suffolk County, 38,744 

Hay produced in the State, tons 5,440,612 

" Suffolk County 41,980 

Corn. — The State produced 20,294,800 bushels; Suffolk County pro- 
duced 582,690. 

Oats. — The State produced 37,968,429 bushels; Suffolk County pro- 
duced 280,566. 

Winter Wheat. — The State produced 9,017,737 bushels; Suffolk 
County produced 182,867.' 

Potatoes. — The State produced 36,639,601 bushels; Suffolk County 
produced 405, 237. 

Number of cattle slaughtered in the State, 85,571 

" Suffolk County, 889 

" '' hogs " in the State, 521,490 

" " " " " Suffolk County, 11,585 

Pork made in the State, lbs., 121,184,622 

" " " Suffolk County, lbs. " 2,708,759 

Gross sales of farm produce in the State, $121,187,467 

" "" " " " Suffolk County, 1,019,617 

Apples produced in the State, bushels 23,118,230 

" Suffolk County, bushels 308,315 

Poultry sold in the State, value $1,772,084 

" " Suffolk County, value - 65,572 

Eggs sold in the State, value 2,513,144 

" Suffolk County, value 118,049 

Two counties sold more poultry, and two only, viz. : 
Dutchess County sold $77,188; Queens County sold $88,403. 
Onondaga sold eggs in value next to Suffolk, and to the amount of 



46 DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

A careful comparison of these tables show results not unfavorable to 
the agriculture of Suffolk County, and the averages of crops of the State 
and county are these: 

PRODUCTION COMPARED. 



AVERAGES OF STATE 


AND COUNTY 






J5ushels 


Corn, New Y 


ork State, 


per acre 
32. 


Barley, ' ' 
Oats, 




22. 

28. 


Rye, 

Potatoes, " 




I I. 

102. 


Hay, 
Hogs, 




I ton. 
223 lbs. 





Bushels 


Suftblk County, 


per acre. 

35- 




25. 
28. 




I2\ 

96. 

I ton. 


, 


233 lbs.' 



All fractions are rejected in the foregoing figures. 

Suffolk County contained in value one-seventieth of all the farm build- 
ings, exclusive of dwellings in the State of New York. Its farmers owned 
in round numbers one-eightieth of all the farm tools and machinery in the 
State. They purchased one-sixth of all the fertilizers purchased in the 
State. The value of the stock in the county was over one-eightieth part of 
all owned in this State. The acres mown to feed that stock was less than 
one-hundredth of all mown in the State, and the average cut of hay was 
within a fraction of the State average per acre. The riumber of cattle 
slaughtered in the county was oyer one-hundredth of all slaughtered in the 
State. The pork made' in the county was over one-fiftieth of all made in 
the State, and the average weight of hogs in the county beat the State 
average ten pounds. Of all the corn raised in this State, Suff"olk County 
produced over one-fortieth; of winter wheat over one-fiftieth, and of pota- 
toes about one-ninetieth. The proportion of oats raised in the county was 
about one hundred and thirty-fifth of the State production. It was thought 
Suffolk County would be a poor county for the production of fruit, and 
yet the apple crop of the county was over one-eightieth of the whole State 
production. In the amount of poultry sold Suffolk County stands third 
in the list of counties in New York State. In the value of eggs sold this 
county stands first, beating every county, and beating Onondaga by over 
$26,000. 

The results of the oat crop of the county as reported in the tables were 
a disappointment to me. I knew that in 1865 our average and aggregate 
product put this county among the foremost. Why in 1875 it was among 
the hindmost seemed unaccountable. The census of 1875 reports the pro- 
duct of 1874. Consulting my record of 1874, I found that I had ten acres 
in oats. 1 remembered that the crop never promised better for from 50 to 
60 bushels per acre than then. 1 threshed 50 bushels, and the army worm 
threshed the rest. That clears the m}'stery. The loss on oats that year in 
the best oat region of the county on the south shore was ten times more 
than the amount harvested. Generally in my section none were threshed. 
In round numbers 10,000 acres were sown in the county. I estimate the 
loss by the.army worm to be not less than 100,000 bushels, of the value of 
55 cents per bushel, and in the aggregate $55,000. This loss should be 
credited to the county in any lair calculation of averages with other coun- 
ties not so ravaged. This is pre-eminently the age of criticism. Moses 
and the Pentateuch are questioned. All the old foundations are pried up 
to see if they have good corner-stones. Men build capitols, and monu- 
ments, and bridges, and hotels by the job, covering up vast frauds. Prac- 



DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



47 



tical men, and literary men, and mechanics, and the professions, believe 
nothing until it is demonstrated. The whole earth is a war of question and 
denial and call for proof. I anticipate this question: If Suffolk County is 
the purchaser of one-third of all the fertilizers sold in the State in 1865, and 
on>sixth in 1875, it must be a poor county; if not, why not? Other 
counties purchase little or none, while Suffolk is so poor it must purchase 
to produce, and unless the production is increased so as to pay the cost of 
fertilizers, Suffolk County is still in arrears. All that may be said regard- 
ing the necessity of restoring fertilizers to a soil long abused by the skin- 
ning process in this old county and the li'ce necessity that will come to 
other counties will avail nothing. All that may be said showing that feed- 
ing produce to animals on the farm while in the main good farming lessens 
the amount of sales and appirent profit, will avail nothing. More largely 
than in other counties Suffolk fed on the farm the hay, corn, oats and 
roots, and sold proportionately rr.ore meat, lessening not really but appar- 
ently her farming profits. All this is apparent, but still the demand comes 
and must be met or avoided. 

The excess and value of county over State avei ages mav be thus stated 
for 1865: 





Acres. 




Total. 




Price per bush. 


Value. 


Com, 7 bushels, 


16,460 I 


-4 


115,221 


3-4 


$1 00 


$115,221 75 


Wheat, 5 


10,563 I 


-4 


52,816 ' 


1-4 


2 60 


137,322 25 


Oats, 9 ' ' 


10,945 




98,505 




80 


78,804 00 


Rye, 8 


5.353 




42,824 




I 10 


47,106 40 


Barley, 12 " 


498 




5,976 




I 10 


6,573 60 


Turnips, 75 " 


689 




51,675 




40 


20,670 00 




The like 


excess for i 


:875 








Acres. 




Total. 




Price per liush. 




Corn, 3 bushels. 


16,304 




48,932 




$1 00 


$48,932 00 


Wheat, 3 


9,388 




28,164 




I 25 


35,205 00 


Barley, 3 " 


186 




568 




I 00 


568 00 


Rye, I 


4,333 




' 4,333 




I 00 


4,333 00 


Apples I " trees 


130,406 




130,406 




50 


65,203 do 



Loss on oat crop by army worm, 

Total value of county excess. 
Add for permanent improvement of land by fertilizers. 



55,000 00 

$614,939 00 
100,000 00 

$714,939 00 



Total, .... 

Deduct for less county average. 

Acres. Total. Price. 

1865. Potatoes 13 bu. 3,439 1-2 44,713 1-2 $0 80 $35,770 80 
1875. " 6 " 4,208 25,248 o 50 12,624 00 



Total to deduct. 

Balance of county over State production, 

Cost of fertilizers in i86'5, 

" " " " 1875, 

Amounting to 



$294,429 40 
316,737 00 



$48,394 80 
$666,545 20 



611,266 40 



Balance credit to the county over the State average after 

deducting cost of all fertilizers, . . $55,278 80 

In this calculation I have disregarded the item of fertilizers purchased 



48 



DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



liv other counties and have under-estimated the amount of permanent im- 
provement which I believe the land derived from the lars^e application of 
fertilizers. No account is made of any extra straw or stalks thereby grown, 
and none of the extra market value of Long Island potatoes. All these 
items in the statement would make it still more favorable to the county, 
and would add force to the demonstration that Suffolk County can afford 
to purchase, and actually profits by the large application of fertilizers. It 
is usually the farmer who purchases judiciously the most manure who 
makes the most profit. 

|. H. Wardle, Esq. , has kindly sent in advance sheets of the census of 
1880, from which I give these figures: 

No. of farms in the State of New York, 241,05.8 

•" " " " Suffolk County, - 3-379 

*' " acres improved in the State, 17,717,862 

*' " " " " " Count}', 156,223 

" " " unimproved in the State, 6,062,892 

" " " " " " County, 152,694 

" " " woodland in the State, 5> 195.795 

" " " " " " County, " 134,836 

Value of farms in the State, $1,056,176,741 



" 


" " " " County 




17,079,652 


( ( 


" farm tools and machinery in the State, 


42,592,741 


( ( 


I ( ( i I i ' < 


"- " " County, 


563,225 


il 


" live stock in State, 




117,868,283 


i i 


" " " " County 




1,359,047 


" 


" fertilizers pmrchased 


in State, 


2,715.477 


" 


" " " 


" County, ' ■ 


272,134 


i ( 


" farm productions in 


State, 


178,025,695 


i I 


it 11 i< " 


County, 


2,198,079 






Bushels. 


Acres. 


Barle; 


Y, in the State, 


7,792,062 


356,629 


" 


" " County, 


■ 5,459 


199 






Acres. 


Bushels. 


-Indian corn, in the State, 


779,272 


25,690, 156 


" 


County, 


18,097 


624,407 


Oats, 


in the State, 


1,261,171 


37,575,506 


'< 


" County, 


9,556 


311,581 


Rye, 


in the State, 


244,923 


2,634,690 




" County, 


3,931 


47,471 


Wheat, in the State, 


736,611 


11,587,766 


i i 


" County, 


5,660 


182,537 






Area mown acre.s. 


crop, tons. 


Hay, 


State, 


4,644,452 


5.255,642 


( I 


County, 


33,197 


40, III 


Numbers 






poultry. 






6,448,886, Eggs produced, in 


1 the State, dozens 


31,958,739 


160, 


173, " 


' SutTolk County, 


910,848 


214, 


,59c, - " -Erie 


1,116,191 


194,950. " 


■ Cayuga 


932,947 


183, 


395. " 


• Oneida " " 


1,008,330 


204, 


295. " 


Onondaga " 


972,206 



DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



49 



199,840, Eggs produced in St. Lawrence Co. doz. 1,073,385 

217,826, " " " Steuben Co. " i»037, 509 

Acres. Bushels. 

Irish potatoes, State 340,536 33,644,807 

County, ^ 3,796 493^078 

Orchard products value, State $8,409,794 

County 17', 248 

Market garden products sold. State value 4,211,642 

Co. 118,293 
Amount of cord-wood cut. 

State, 4.187,942. County, 34,228. 

Value of fruit products sold. 

State, $8,759,901. County, 1127,960. 

The results of the figures of the census of 1880, are these: 
The area of farms in the State averages over acres, 73 

" " " " " " County " " " 45 

measured by the acres of improved lands. 

Less than one-hundredth of all the improved lands in the State lie in 
Suffolk County, yet the county has nearly one seventieth in number of all 
the farms, showing thereby a more general distribution of land among the 
masses of people. Suffolk County contains about one-fortieth part of all 
the unimproved lands in the State, ?nd a fraction over that proportion ol all 
the woodlands. The farms of this county in value aggregate over one 
sixty-second part of the whole State valuation. 

Suffolk County owns over one-eightieth part of the farm tools and ma- 
chinery in the State, and over one-eightieth in value of all live stock in the 
State. Suffolk County purchased over one-tenth of all the fertilizers pur- 
chased in the State. The aggregate farm production of the county was 
over one-eightieth of all produced in the State. This county raised over 
one-fortieth of all the corn raised in the State, nearly one-hundreth part of 
all the oats; over one-sixtieth of all the rye, and over one sixty-fourth of 
all the wheat. Suffolk County mowed less than one-hundred and fortieth 
of all the acres mown in the Statn. It produced nearly the one-hundred and 
thirty-first of all the hay crop cut. The State average per acre was a little 
over one and one-tenth tons, and the county average per acre a little over 
one and two-tenths tons. Suffolk County produced nearly one-thirty-fifth 
of all the eggs in the State, from less than one-fortieth of all the poultry, rank- 
ing the seventh in product of eggs, and holding in number of poultry by 
over twenty thousand less than any of the six counties which produced more 
eggs. In acreage Suffolk County had of potatoes a fraction less than one- 
ninetieth contained in the State, and produced therefrom a fraction over one- 
seventieth of all the bushels produced. In value of orchard product the 
county, compared with the State, fails to come up to anything which mi"-ht 
in former results have been reported. 

In value of market garden products sold, the county sales were over one 
thirty-fifth of all sales made in the State. Suffolk County cut less than the 
one-hundred and twenty-second part of all the wood cut in cords in the 
State, but sold in products of the forest over one-seventieth of all sold in the 
State. 



'56 DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

The State and county averages compare thus per acre: 

Bushels. Bushels. 

Barley, State, 21.85 County, 27 3-10 

Indian corn, " 32.97 " 344-10 

Oats, " 20.79 " 32 6-10 

Rye, " 10.76 " 12 

Wheat, " 15.73 . " 18 8-10 

Potatoes, " 986-10 " 1298-10 

In all these products the county, rejecting fractions, exceeded the State 
averages thus: Per acre, on barley, 6 bushels; on corn, oats and rye, two 
bushels each; on wheat, three; and potatoes, twenty-one bushels. The 
deficiency of the county in potatoes in the years 1865 and 1875, is more 
than offset by its surplus per acre in 1880. The former surplus reported 
for the State in oats, in 1875, when our county suffered by the army worm, 
does not continue in 1880. In the great staples of corn and winter wheat 
the surplus average of this county continues through alL these years, to the 
credit of the county It will be observed that while Suffolk County pur- 
chased in 1865 one-third, in 1875 one-sixth, and in 1880 one-tenth of all 
the fertilizers purchased in the State, other counties were increasing their 
proportion of fertilizers after her example, and following more closely her 
methods. I introduce this account to show that such purchase pays: 
The whole farm products of the State in value are $178,025,695 

" " " " " County, " " 2,198,079 

The county owns less than i-ioo of all the improved lands 
of the State, and measured thereby, i-ioo of the pro- 
duct is, . . . . ... 1,780,256 



Credit of surplus product to the county is $417,823 

Cost of fertilizers purchased in " " 272,134 



Excess product, , $145,689 

These figures add force to all former statements favorable to the qual- 
ity of land or purchase of fertilizers to make farming pay in the county or 
State. The variety of soil in Suffolk County is seldom found elsewhere. 
For corn, no land on the continent is better suited. Midway between the 
cold blasts of a northern climate and the extreme heat of a southern, it is 
peculiarly adapted to the growth of that crop. In the production of wheat 
its conditions are favorable. The low, moist lands of the southern sea 
coast are well suited to raise oats. For vegetable growth and root crops, 
both the variety of its soil and temperature of its climate are favorable. The 
hardier fruits, like apples and pears, flourish here. The cauliflower and 
strawberry are so extensively cultivated that for the transportation of both 
crops extra railroad trains are specially run, and for the latter steamers from 
Greenport to Boston. The tables of the census demonstrate much of these 
remarks. But those of 1875 were compiled before the culture of these 
crops had reached their present very large proportions, or become a largely 
developed industry and been proved to be so profitable in pecuniary re- 
sults. It is a matter of regret that no records exist whereby the precise ex- 
tent of production in these crops can be ascertained. Yet it is significant 
that as New York city has judged the flavor of Long Island potatoes to be 
130 superior as to command a premium in her markets, so Boston seeks in 
preference the strawberry that grew in Suffolk County. How this old 



\ 

DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 5I 

county from the acorn grew in wealth and comfort to the soHd oak; what 
changes occurred from its primitive government, jurisprudence and the ad- 
ministration of justice; how the Hght of education, intelhgence and literary 
culture shone from its early dawn to the brightness of the present day; what 
progress it has made reaching for the wisdom that comes from above; how 
its commerce, navigation and fisheries were pursued by its adventurous 
citizens. All these ar^ subjects assigned to other speakers and prohibited 
to me. Of that glad acclaim which echoed from the shores of th's county 
m exultation to Heaven, when in i yS^ the last British soldier evacuated 
-orever its soil — even to speak of this is to tread on ground dedicated to 
another. But in all these historic events the farmer of Suffolk County was 
the central figure, and the tillers of the soil the prominent actors. The first 
settlers derived their subsistence chiefl}- from the farms they cleared in the 
wilderness. The early primeval government organized was instituted, and 
perpetuated, and developed by farmers. The diffusion of the light of edu- 
cation, intelligence and literary culture was mainly due to the farmer. If 
true devotion spoke anywhere to the power on high, it spoke at the hearth- 
stone and fireside of the (armer. If commerce and navigation carried ad- 
venturous enterprise to the remotest sea, the sons of the farmer manned and 
sailed the ship. If fisheries were followed on stream or bay, on harbor, or 
sound, through strait or ocean, his hardy sons cast the net, threw the line 
or harpoon with the foremost pioneers. In colonial conflicts with the In- 
dians or with the French, or both, the yeomanry of this county contended 
side by side with their compeers of other counties. The numbers they 
armed and the tax they paid were often among the largest contributed by 
any county in the State. • In the long Revolutionary war, from the first, the 
farmers of Suffolk County were solid in resisting the oppressions of the 
Crown. In the disastrous battle of Long Island her sons bled in defence 
of the country. The seven dark years of captivity and desolation that fol- 
lowed, what historian can record ! what pencil can paint ! Abandoned by 
countrymen, oppressed by foe, plundered and derided by both, this county 
suffered its long hours of agony, upheld by the hope that the power that 
rules the universe would bring deliverance to them. From its household 
altars ascended in devotion the thought in a later day beautifully embodie'"' 
thus: 

" If for the a^e to come, this hour 

Of trial hath vicarious power; 

And blest by thee our present pain 

Be Liberty's eternal gain — 
Thy will be done ! 

Strike; 'I'hou the Master, we thy keys, 
The anthem of the destinies ! 
The union of thy loftier strain ; 
Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain, 
Thy will be done !" 

In every line of the record of the historic past; in every great crisis of 
the colony or" State, the farmers of Suffolk County have imperishably re- 
corded their names with the illustrious dead. (}o to the Declaration of In- 
dependence, and with the s.gners to that indestructible landmark of the 
Nation is written the name of William Floyd, a farmer of Suffolk County ! 
Look for the consecrated dust of those who fell martyrs in the Revolution- 
ary struggle, and within the limits of this county find buried one of her 
larmers over whose memory broods unceasing regret, and over whose 



52 DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

name burns the undying fire of patriotism. Monuments may perish; age 
may obscure; yet after monuments have vanished, after ages have passed 
the name and memory of General Nathaniel Woodhull will remain in the 
minds of his countrymen linked forever with the remembrance of that great 
contest in which he fell. 

For the farmers of Suffolk County I might and I must say more. But 
for them there had been no Suffolk County as it now is. The bed rock of 
Agriculture underlies all other occupations; is the mother of all arts, of all 
manufactures, of all navigation, subsisting on the products of the prolific 
earth, all these may flourish. Thereby manufactures may expand ; the 
mechanic arts make progress, and commerce be carried, for exchange of 
products over every ocean. But for Agriculture there had been no plant-' 
ing of colonies on these shores; no commerce over her waters; no United 
States on this Continent. The farmer made all this possible. Mainly by 
his strong arm; the feeble colonies grew in numbers and power, into States, 
and fought successfully the great Revolution that made them free and in- 
dependent of all other nations. All honor to the farmer! all praise to ag- 
riculture! Not least of all to the agriculture and the farmer of Suffolk 
County. The mariners who from this county traversed every sea; the 
mechanics who wrought in all the arts of industry; the professions which 
shone as lights in theology, in medicine, in jurisprudence; the Legislators 
who sat in the halls of the State or Nation, were born and reared on the 
farms of Suffolk County.' Therefrom came her Senators in both. Thence- 
forth marched that woundrous tide of emigration from colonial days to 
other counties of this great State, north and west, and to east and west 
Jerseys, as then known; and through after ages to the expanding West and 
the remotest Pacific coast. That mighty tide, enlarging, enriching, aug- 
menting the population and power of other counties and States and terri- 
tories, diminished the growth of this county while it enlarged theirs. 

The proximity of Suffolk County to the large cities of the continent 
attracted visitors from the earliest days. The invalid and wayworn found 
its ocean breeze bracing in summer and mild in winter. The sportsman 
found game running in its forests, swimming in its abounding waters, and 
fiying in its air. The lover of quiet and repose found it here. The good 
cheer and substantial comfort of its old taverns and farm houses were wide- 
ly and well known. From the tip ends of Orient and IMontauk Points to 
its western limits, in early, and increasing in later days, Suffolk County 
was the resort of hundreds now grown to thronging thousands. Dominy's 
and Sammis' hotels were almost as well known as the Astor House and 
Delmonico's; yet Fire Islaad and Bay Shore were but two, out of scores of 
other resorts where, on both shores of the county, and extending eastward, 
then and now the interior and the cities pour their residents on the sea 
coast of this county. The products of its soil were largely consumed by 
boarders in farm houses, and hence the returns of those products foot up 
relatively less for this than other counties in the census reports. 

If elsewhere the farmer communes with nature and comes nearer her 
gates than other industrial classes; if elsewhere the contest to overcome 
the obstacles nature interposes to impede the fruition of his desire, is wag- 
ing; if elsewhere the study of her laws and mysteries awakes close obser- 
vation, minute search and absorbing thought; if elsewhere conformity to 
her laws be the requirement of success in the battle of wrestling from the 
soil its products; if elsewhere the vastness of her range, the uniformity of 



DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



53 



her constitutions, the precision of her methods, the inexorable power of 
her elements, the evidences of design in her arrano;ements, reveal the hand 
and mind of a mighty Maker. In all these surroundings the Suffolk Coun- 
ty farmer lives within a field as vast, as varied, as full of all that animates 
observation, impels to study, excites to wonder or elevates to devotion as 
his brother farmer in other locations, here the fields of green grass or wav- 
ing grain are varied with the growth of the forest. Here the parching 
drouths of summer's long day are relieved by the munificent dews of the 
evening. Here the oppressive heat of winds from north and west is over- 
come by the breeze of ocean. The glimmer of stream and creek, of harbor 
and bay and Sound, add to the charm of rural landscape — and over all the 
sound of ocean's wave. 

Since 1683, when under Governor Thomas Dongan, Suffolk County 
as a county was organized; six generations of its farmers have passed away. 
The simple funeral rites of those times strangely contrast with the pomp, 
display and pageantry of the present. 

" The Power incens'd the pageant will desert." On the bier on the 
shoulders of the living the dead were reverently carried to their final rest. 
The stars of heaven shine upon their graves as they shone then; the blue 
vault that o'er arches us, hung over them; the anthem of ocean that sung 
their funeral dirge, age after age, rolls on, and will sound in our expiring 
breath and over our crumbling dust. 

Celebrating this day that great event that two hundred years gone by 
organized the then living generation in one compact body as a county; pay- 
ing our tribute to them and their descendants; honoring their virtues and 
their patriotism; blessed with the results of their toils, their fortitude and 
their courage, as if standing beside their opened graves, we bear our un- 
worthy offering to their memory and their solid worth. They built this 
time-honored county and made it what it is; sire and son, after each other, 
transmitted to coming posterity the fruits of their industry, the immunities 
they gained, the free institutions they formed possessing this fair inheritance 
from them, let our thanks be given from age to age, constant as the lights 
or the voices that Nature gives. In this let us not fail, as these never fail. 

" The harp, at Nature's advent strung. 

Has never ceased to play; 

The song the stars of mourning sung 

Has never died away; 

And prayer is made, and praise is given 

By all things near and far; 

The ocean looketh up to heaven 

And mirrors every star. 

Its waves are kneeling on the strand 

As kneels the human knee; 

Their white locks bowing to the sand, 

The Priesthood of -the sea. 

The winds with hymns of praise are loud, 

Or low with sobs of pain; 

The thunder organ of the cloud. 

The dropping tears of rain. 

The blue sky is the temple's arch; 

Its transept earth and air; 



§4 bEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULWRE. 

The music of its starry March 

The chorus of a prayer. 

So Nature keeps her reverent frame 

With which her years began, 

And all her signs and voices shame 

The prayerless heart of man." 




'he €!ommerce, Mayigation 



inisiiElI=LIE]S 



OF- 



STJI^IJ^OUjI^ OOXJISTTY" 



;0N. ^ENRY ^. JEEVES. 



THERE is a French saying, whose age not less than its manifest merit 
entitles it to respect, that whoever essays to excuse himself thereby 
becomes his own accuser. I recognize the full force of this truth, yet 
I am constrained to incur the risk and accept the condemnation it implies. 
Indeed, I freely confess that no one of this audience, even while the dis- 
appointment that doubtless awaits them is fresh in mind, can be more swift 
or less sparing in sentence than is the culprit who stands before them, while 
I realize the rashness and improvidence of which I was guilty when, at the 
instance of your committee, I weakly consented to stand in the gap of 
some better man and to undertake a task of which I then had but a dim and 
distant appreciation. I yielded to importunity and fell a victim to my own 
complaisance, mainly because I then supposed that, whatever anticipated 
obstacles might arise from the lack of suitable preparation, by reason of 
any adequate previous familiarity with the topics to be treated, and from 
want of time in the midst of other engrossing cares and duties, to bestow 
the proper deliberation and thought upon those topics, there would be no 
serious difficulty in gathering the material of facts and figures out of which 
to construct a sufficient framework for future elaboration — the foundation 
stones on which to build, if not a palace to be admired in the daylight, at 
least a modest dwelling in which to be comfortably housed and entertained 
for a single evening. But on proceeding to act upon this idea and to 
search out the necessary data and statistics which I had thought to be 
readily available, I was, to my great surprise as well as discomfiture, forced 
to the unwelcome conclusion that they do not exist in any actual or ac- 
cessible form. Many hours of unfruitful labor have been devoted to this 
search, many barren inquiries have been made in quarters where inform- 



56 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

ation seemed likely to be had, many letters have been written which yield- 
ed little or no valuable return. The Commerce, Navigation and Fisheries 
of Suffolk County are almost wholly a sealed book, or, rather, the book 
has not been written that even assumes to record their origin, growth, past 
development or present condition. None of the histories or historical 
documents relating to Long Island, so far as I have been able to discover, 
treat separately and with either any considerable fullness of detail or exact- 
ness of statement, the subjects which go to make up the several topics cov- 
ered by my theme. In attempting to do it even the scant justice which 
such an occasion permits, I am left to grope in the dark, with no clear and 
fixed illumination to guide my steps in any direction. Instead of the de- 
scriptive accounts from which some definite and trustworthy generaliza; 
tions might be drawn, there are but the barest and- briefest references, 
which neither satisfy inquiry, nor supply information; instead of precise 
data, which are essential to historical accuracy, there are loose assertions, 
unverified conjectures and random remarks. Even the statistics which 
appertain to certain branches of the general subject, though gathered in 
recent years with painstaking fidelity by ofiicials or agents assigned to the 
work, are comprehended in the fio^ures of other and larger districts, and 
thus fail to shed light on the particular section to which attention is nec- 
essarily confined. It would seem even easier to discuss with some degree 
of satisfaction the Commerce, Navigation and Fisheries of the State of New 
York or of the United States, than to sift from numberless bushels of chaff 
the grains of truth which miy give in. meagre outline some idea of what 
ought to be said of the Commerce, Navigation and Fisheries of Suffolk 
County, to which, by the mistaken indulgence of your committee, I have 
been restricted. Amid some physical disabilities and many pressing en- 
gagements I have tried faithfully and arduously to collect and combine the 
elements from which might be composed a worthy testimonial to the last- 
ing influences, the large results and the wide bearings of these topics in 
their manifold relations to- the development, material, moral, mental and 
spiritual, of the people who inhabit our good county. My own concep- 
tion of the scope and character of such a contribution to this bi-centennial 
celebration as ought to be and as could be made from a proper treatment 
of the theme assigned me, is a far higher one than, as I am deeply con- 
scious, has been attained or perhaps approached in performance. In 
truth, I have been compelled to be content with some general and doubt- 
less crude observations more or less pertinent to the two first topics, and 
after considering the last in a similar incomplete way to add some facts 
which have been secured by dint of diligent research in a field where 
neither landmarks nor mile posts were ever erected and where one must do 
his own digging to unearth even small fragments of that full knowledge 
which probably will never come to the surface. As proof that I am not 
exaggerating the difficulty attending this inquiry in order to shield myself 
from your displeasure at not receiving such an exposition of the theme as 
vou may have been led to expect, I may be allowed to quote the conclud- 
ing sentence of a letter from Joseph Nimmo, jr. , the accomplished and 
indefatigable Chief of the Bureau of Statistics in the Treasury Department 
at Washington, himself a loving son of Old Suffolk, written in answer to 
my application for aid from his Bureau. After reciting various insupera- 
ble drawbacks to the proper preparation of a paper on this theme, he says: 
" If you should fail to meet the expectations of your audience you will 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES, 57 

certainly be entitled to plead in defence the fact that you were asked to do 
the impossible thing, and you may, if you choose, summon me as witness 
in your defense. "* 

The two first topics of my theme, C ommerce and Navigation, are so 
far connected, in the limited sense in which the former word is ordinarily 
used and in which 1 have used it, that they may properly be taken together. 
Commerce, in its widest signification, means intercourse between different 
individuals or communities for the purpose of exchanging commodities. 
Practically it is synonymous with trade or traffic, but its use is preferred 
where the trade is carried on upon an extensive scale, the distinction being 
one of degree and not of kind. Of course, in this sense, it matters not 
how its operations be conducted — whether in vessels upon open waters; in 
boats upon canals or rivers or lakes; in wagons upon public lOads; in 
railway cars or whatever otTier conveyances. I'o commerce between 
different places within the same country the qualifying terms internal or 
domestic are applied; to describe the commerce between different coun- 
tries the vv'ord foreign is used. In the United States the commerce between 
ports in the same or different States on the seaboard is called the coasting- 
trade, while the commerce with other countries is called foreign trade. 
Though, properly speaking, as before noted, commerce takes no account 
of the means or agencies by which its work is done, yet in common usage 
we understand by it that kind of trade which is carried on upon the water 
by means of vessels propelled by sails or steam power. It is in this latter 
sense that I have chiefly considered the word as it concerns the present 
occasion, and in this sense I have felt justified in treating it and its cog- 
nate title Navigation as parts of one whole. Certainly this conjunction 
must fairly be held to be allowable, if not an absolute necessity, during 
more than four- fifths of the period over which we are called to cast a re- 
trospective eye. Until after the extension of the Long Island Railroad 
through the county, which was completed in 1844, and for a considerable 
time afterwards, by far the largest part of the commerce of Suffolk County, 
both domestic and foreign, was carried on in vessels engaged either in 
coasdng or in .foreign trade. It is true that some intercourse was had by 
stages running from different points to Brooklyn and New York, and an 
exchange of some home-grown or home-made commodities was effected 
between the north and south sides of the island by wagons, or rather by 
ox-carts driven laboriously over the long and lonely forest roads; but the 
stages seldom carried anything beside passengers and their personal lug- 
C^age, and it was rare indeed that any of the products of fields or woods 
were carted to the cities or that goods and merchandize were brought back 
from the cities to the then relatively distant wilds of Suffolk. For all this 
time, embracing fully 160 years, the main part, almost the whole, of the 
'rade between the people in this county and New York was done in ves- 
sels, as likewise, by a natural necessity, was all trade with their northern 
neighbors of New England to whom they were continuously drawn by the 
closest ties of an unbroken community Df sympathies, sentiments and in- 
terests. 

* Beside its intrinsic value the letter here referred to may serve sufficiently to set forth 
some phases of the general subject which, in order not to unduly extend the limits of this 
paper and because of the recognized impossibility to give precise or even approximate 
data, I deemed it best to omit from the reading altogether. It has therefore been thought 
proper to print it in full as an appendix, and readers will find it of interest. 



gg COAlMEkCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

Even to this day, substantially all the trade of the county with New 
York not done by the railroad is done by vessels. The railway traffic 
within recent years has had an immense expansion, and its volume swells 
visibly from year to year; in its course it bears away enormous amounts of 
the products of the soil, the forest and the water, and it brings back vast 
burdens of fertilizers, lumber, brick, coal, manufactured goods, groceries 
and even of breadstuffs which, under changed agricultural conditions are 
no longer grown at home in quantities anywhere near large enough to feed 
our resident population, to say nothing of the many thousands of tempo- 
rary sojourners who come among us for some months of summer recrea- 
tion. I have sought to procure from its officials some details that would 
show authentically the progress made in this species of domestic commerce 
during the last quarter of a century, but I have not' been able to procure 
any. It is stated that the early records were destroyed. Could the exact 
figures be given they would, I am sure, prove startling in their magnitude 
as well as conclusive as a demonstration of the activity, the energy and 
the skill with which the people in this so-called "slow and easy," con- 
servative old county of Suffolk are subduing to their needs the earth and 
the sea within their bounds. Yet, great and swift as has been the growth 
of our railway traffic, it may be doubted if the commerce by sea from and • 
to the several ports that line the north side and the eastern end of the 
county and the shores of the Great South Bay, does not exceed it in ex- 
tent, in variety and in value. It seems to me proper, then, to consider the 
Commerce and Navigation of our county as practically one subject and to 
treat them from the same point of view. 

A single word as to the nature and high function of this branch of the 
theme may be pardoned. If it be true, as has been aptly said, that Com- 
merce is the handmaid of civilizadon, is it not equally true that she is the 
foster-sister of agriculture and the industrial arts ? While the former might 
supply mankind with the simple necessaries of existence, and while the 
latter might enable them to grasp a fuller measure of comfort and conve- 
nience than they could otherwise hope to enjoy, or even to acquire some 
of the luxuries of life, yet the kindly offices of commerce are needed to 
diffuse the blessings derived from each of the other two, and without her 
beneficent interposition neither could attain unto its complete develop- 
ment. 

We assemble to-day to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the forma- 
tion of Suffolk County as a distinct civil division of this State. On Nov. 
I, 1683, an act was passed by the Governor, Council and General Assem- 
bly of the Colony, to divide the province of New York into counties; and 
Suffolk was described as containing the towns of Huntington (from which 
Babylon has since been set off), Smithfield (now Smithtown), Brookhaven 
(first known as Setalcott or Setauket), Southampton, Southold, East- 
Hampton to Montauk Point, Shelter Island, the Isle of Wight (another 
name for Gardiner's Island), Fisher's Island and Plum Island. These isl- 
ands subsequently became integral parts of the towns of East-Hampton 
and Southold. This, then, is the area within which my theme limits me 
to a consideration of the commerce, navigation and fisheries during the 
past two centuries. 

The founders of the first settlements in this county, and many of those 
who during the first century followed them to its shores, were from Suffolk 
county in the Southeast part of England, a sea-coast county whose allu- 



dDMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 59 

vial meadows and marshes fronted the turbulent North Sea. Many^of 
them had been mariners and fishermen by occupation, as their fathers had 
been before them; and from generations of descent not less than by per- 
sonal habitudes, they had inherited or acquired much of the sturdy self- 
reliance, the dauntless courage, the unshrinking fortitude, the bold spirit 
of restless enterprise, the physical vigor and the strong, stout, active man- 
hood, which characterized the British sailor at his best estate. How large 
a share of these sterling elements of moral and physical stamina were add- 
ed to and immovably embedded in the character of the present population 
of this county, no man can accurately estimate; but the indelible impress 
of these grand qualities has always been and still is plainly discernible in 
the lives and careers of every generation that has succeeded the first settlers. 
From their prolific loins have gone out multitudes to blaze the way Of 
coming civilization in all the spreading wilderness that has since been sub_ 
dued and made to blossom as the rose, westward, northward and south- 
ward from the Mohawk Valley toward the setting sun. Everywhere, as 
one travels over the vast area which comprehends our Uncle Samuel's wide 
domain, he either meets or hears of descendants from Suffolk county fam- 
ilies, some of them foremost in the ranks of workers and thinkers. The 
spirit which impelled them to face known and unknown perils, to endure 
years of grievous privation and toil, and to encounter, sometimes single- 
handed, all the hazards and the hardships of frontier life, was largely re- 
cruited from the sailors and the fishermen who at some period of a more 
or less remote antiquity had crossed dieir blood with the less swift but not 
less healthy and pure stream that flowed in the veins of the landsmen of 
Suffolk County. We owe to those hardy and chaste and manly seamen 
who came over from the Suffolk of England to the Yennacook of the Long 
Island Indians and brought to it across the sea the name beloved at home, 
some of the noblest elements which go to make up human character. 
Naturally, Long Island, with its extended shore line, indented 
with its numerous bays and creeks, its abundant waters pop- 
ulous with the finny tribes, its smiling valleys and wooded head- 
lands green to the depth of verdure and radiant under the sunlight of 
skies more bright than those which bend over the famed land of poesy 
and song, had an irresistible attraction to those dwellers by the low-lying 
shores of the distant English sea. In skirting Long Island Sound they en- 
tered Peconic Bay and at Town Harbor found the first "fair haven" of 
their desires, where they laid the foundation of the town of Southold. Al- 
most or quite coeval with this landing at Town Harbor, settlers from 
other parts of New England, all of them emigrants from the old England, 
commenced the settlement of Southampton. While no definite records 
exist to put the facts beyond question, there seems to be good reason to 
believe that early in the infancy of these eastern towns, and of the other 
settlements which developed into the present towns of East-Hampton, 
Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington, small open boats and canoes, 
with a few of larger size and decked -over, sloop-rigged though called 
ketches and pinnaces, were built from the native woods, with sails and 
rigging made stoutly though to modern eyes uncouthly, by men who had 
but slight acquaintance with the arts of either sail or rope making; but 
zeal and perseverance overcame all obstacles and they put together sub- 
stantial and staunch craft, however clumsy or slow, and in them they 
voyaged to New York, New Haven, Hartford, and even as far as to Bos- 



60 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

ton Bay — carrying with them Uttle beside such occasional surplus of corn 
as might have been grown above the needs of the settlers, the skins and 
furs of wild animals procured from the chase or by traffic with the Indians, 
and the oil and bone of whales drifted on shore or captured by their own 
strong arms, and bringing back modest stocks of goods from the mother 
country adapted to their most urgent wants. Sometimes these voyages 
were made wholly or mainly for pleasure, to visit relatives and friends from 
whom they had long been parted. To us, who are brought by daily steam 
communication so near to the places named, it may not be easy to esti- 
mate the serious nature of such an undertaking as a trip at that time from 
Eastern Long Island to the Dutch settlement of New Netherlands or to 
the New England ports with which their commercial, like their political 
and civil intercourse, was more intimate and frequent. Except for the 
compass to guide their course, no aids to navigation then existed. No 
buoys marked the channels and shoals of water ways; no beacons or light- 
houses shed friendly instruction by day or night over the dangerous pas- 
sages or the shores and rocks to be avoided. By the compass alone, when 
not close in with the land, they steered through the day, and by the 
light of moon or stars they sometimes sailed at night, but often when the 
weather was not fair they sought the shelter of some bay or cove and cast 
anchor or drew their boats to land till morning. It may not have been a 
display of such subUme faith and such calm courage as were shown by the 
heroes who a century before turned the prows of their frail barges from the 
old world toward the unknown new and boldly pressed on into the welter- 
ing waste of Atlantic waters; but it was a great enterprise and an actual 
achievement, into which the same elements of faith and courage and skilled 
seamanship according to the conditions under which' it was then exercised, 
may be said with no less truth, though in less degree, to have entered. 

Coincident with the first settlement of Southold in 1640, Thomas 
Weatherby (appropriately named) is mentioned as a mariner and as having 
bought a house and lot at Town Harbor for ^15, on October 25, 1604- 
In Book A of the Town Records is entered the sale of a ketch of 44 tons. 
Though this word is usually given to vessels of 100 to 200 tons or over, 
having main and mizzen masts and decked over, it is probable the vessel 
referred to was a sloop whose tonnage rated by the measurement now in 
vogue would perhaps not exceed 12 to 15 tons. Pinnaces were also men- 
tioned in the old records, and were small open boats navigated with oars 
or sails; if with the latter they generally had two masts but were sloop- 
rigged. 

As the colonies slowly grew in numbers and increased the products of 
their industries, this commerce, especially with New . England, to whom 
the affections and the alliances of our ancestors went out with especial 
force, kept equal or more than equal pace in the extent, variety and vol- 
ume of its operations. The size of the vessels was enlarged and their 
equipments improved. Sloops of 10 to 20 or 30 tons were built and used 
in carrying produce, whale oil and bone, peltry, etc., and passengers, 
across the Sound or to Massachusetts' ports, returning with such wares as 
were fitted to the few and simple wants of a Puritan people. While there 
were no Custom Houses and no records before the latter part of the last 
century, we have reason to believe that the coasting trade along the shores 
of New England and Long Island was already active and considerable, 
though conducted in small craft. It is evidence of Long Island's having 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 6l 

even tnen shown marked advances toward that commercial development 
which its natural conditions invited and which the enterprise of its people 
made necessary, that by an act of Congress in 1788 Sag Harbor was con- 
stituted a Port of Entry and U. S. Collection District, being named first in 
the act, which also erected the port of New York. It was then and for 
some time afterward relatively the more important port of the two. It has 
continued a port of entry and a collection district ever since, though under- 
going great variations in the amounts of tonnage registered and business done 
within its jurisdiction. David Gardiner, of East-Hampton, wrote and pub- 
lished in the Sag Harbor Corrector about the year 1840, a series of " Chron- 
icles of the town of East-Hampton," which were afterwards revised, gathered 
into book form, and printed in New York in 187 1. In this work, on page 
71, he says, what the historian Prime had already said in almost the same 
words, apparently adopting them from the Corrector s print, that "As early 
as 1 760, when yet the commerce of New York was carried on principally 
with schooners and sloops, a small trade was had from this port (meaning 
Sag Harbor) with the West Indies. Col. Gardiner owned two brigs en- 
gaged in that trade, and there were several sloops employed in the fisheries 
and coasting business partially owned by the inhabitants of this town. On 
the conclusion of the war Dr. N. Gardiner and his brother purchased a ship 
called the Hope and sent her upon a whaling voyage under command of 
Capt. Ripley, she being the first ship that sailed from Sag Harbor. About 
the same time they dispatched a brig of the first class upon a like voyage. 
These voyages were unsuccessful.'' 

John Gelston, of N. Y. City, a native of Bridge-Hampton, was the 
first Collector of customs, having been appointed under Washington. He 
served about a year and was succeeded by Henry P. Dering who held the 
ofiice for 31 years until 1821, when his son, Henry Thomas Dering, was 
appointed, and for many years he, too, served in that ofiice to the great 
satisfaction of all who had to do with it. 

On page 91 of Gardiner's Chronicles it is recorded that "The princi- 
pal commercial intercourse was had with Boston, and several sloops were 
employed in the trade ; among others as early as 1765, the sloop Endeavor, 
Abraham Schelling master. Cattle, horses, sheep, goats and oil were bar- 
tered for lumber, the produce of the West India islands, and such articles 
as merchants deal in." The trade with the Indians which began with the 
first settlement and continued throughout on a basis of practically uninter- 
rupted friendship and good will, consisted mainly in an exchange of rum, 
ammunition and guns for pelts and furs. * 

The boundary line between the English and Dutch was established at 
Hartford by commissioners, who fixed it at the westernmost line of Oyster- 
bay southerly to the sea. From 1640 to 1664, the settlers were virtually 
their own masters and owned allegiance to no one lower in authority than 
the British Crown itself. The first individual English settler in this county 
and State was Lyon Gardiner, on Gardiner's Island, in 1639. The dates 

*A brief extract from the introduction to the excellent History of New London by Miss 
Frances Manwaring Caulkins may not be out of place here : 

"Here lies Connecticut and Long Inland forever looking at each other from their 
white shores with loving eyes, linked as they are by the ties* of a common origin, c ongen- 
ial character and similar institutions; and guarding with watchful care that inland sea which, 
won from the ocean, lies like a noble captive between them, subdued to theii- service and 
enclosed by their protecting arms-" 



62 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

of settlement of the towns were : Southold and Southampton, 1640 : East- 
Hampton, 1648; Shelter Island, 1652; Huntington, 1653; Brookhaven, 
1655; Smithtown, 1663. On Nov. 30, 1664, commissioners appointed by 
Governor Nichols decided L. I. Sound to be the boundary, and for the 
first time all Long Island came under English rule. 

During later years there has been a great expansion of the trade and ton- 
nage of the county. Larger vessels came into play, and longer voyages 
became common. The extensive forests of pine and oak that covered the 
larger part of the county furnished and continue to furnish great quanti- 
ties of w^ood for fuel or for the dunnage of ships bound on foreign voyages, 
and its transportation to market gave and still gives employment to many 
vessels. ' The surplus of farm produce and the products of the whale and 
other fisheries, with brick and fire clays, sands, gravel and other materials 
for use or consumption in other places, served to swell the volume of out- 
going commodities for which the goods and merchandize of the cities 
and the products of labor or art were exchanged. In 1794 the Sag 
Harbor Custom House had on its books 472 tons of registered and 
473 tons of enrolled and licensed vessels ; in 1800 it had 805 of the former 
and 1,449 of the latter; in 1805, 1,916 and 2,228; in 1810, 1,185 and 
3,223 ; in 181 5, 808 and 2,719 (this decline being caused by the war) ; in 
1820, 2,263 ^^^ 3A^^ — a total for the last named year of 5,679 tons 
From that time on it showed a steady and rapid advance until the Califor- 
nia exodus, the great fire, and other causes that co-operated to depress the 
whale fishery, began to cut down its large proportions. 

In the Great South Bay, that remarkable and noble body of water 
which forms the chief natural feature of the southern border of the county 
for its greater length, and at the same time is the main source of subsistence 
for the people inhabiting its northern shores, the early settlers quickly be- 
gan to navigate its shallow waters in canoes, flat-bottomed boats and 
scows, and in later years small sloops and schooners of light draft "were 
built to ply from place to place or, byway of the inlets from the outer ocean, 
to make trips to New York and other ports. As early as 1760 to '70 a few 
sloops traded through the Bay, carrying wood and produce. This trade, 
feeble as it had been, was closed by the war of the Revolution. It re- 
vived with renewed vigor and by 1785 there were 12 sloops and pirogues 
(or canoes) trading on the East Bay. By 1800 the number had increased 
to 30, among them being the sloop Woodcock built and owned by Hon. 
John Smith, at that time United States senator, which vessel was burned 
off" Fire Island in 18 14 by the British sloop-of-war Nimrod. In 1830 there 
were 50 vessels ranging from 25 to 50 tons engaged in carrying wood and 
farm produce. Since then, with some fluctuations: the business has devel- 
oped into great importance, employing many vessels and many persons to 
man them, though the building of the railroad along the shore of the bay 
has materially modified this business there, as railway competition has done 
elsewhere in the county. In 1806 three gun boats were built at Smith's 
Point, on the East Bay, for use in the Tripolitan war, and went out with 
Decatur, under whom they were put to good service. In all, 12 of these 
vessels were built. Many vessels of larger dimensions, from 100 to 400 
tons, including some splendid specimens of marine architecture, have been 
built on the bay shore and launched into its placid waters. From 1825 to 
i860, one informant states, was the palmy period of this business on that 
bay. Some of the finest and fleetest vessels, as is claimed, built anywhere 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 63 

during that period, were built by Boss Hiram Gerard and afterward by 
Boss O. Perry Smith at Patchogue, by Post Brothers, at Bellport, and one 
or two other builders — vessels of 1 50 to 300 tons, owned principally or 
wholly by Brookhaven or Islip men and employed in regular lines between 
Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, Newbern, Richmond and other south- 
ern ports. Trade was active for most of the time, freights were well sus- 
tained, and the owners got a fair percentage on their investments. With 
the introduction of steamers in those lines of coastwise trade the old mode 
of transportation must needs give way to the new, and the larger and better 
class of schooners were put into foreign trade. By the partial cessation of 
demand for that class of vessels, as well as by the death of the old build- 
ers, the business of ship-building on the Bay has been restricted to the smal- 
ler craft, cat-rigged and sloop-rigged boats, with a few schooners, which are 
employed in the oyster or other fisheries. Those that are left in the coast- 
ing trade are confined to coal or other coarser freights which the steamers 
do not care to handle, and are paid rates below what they used to get, so 
that the business is now less profitable. At present the vessels in which 
South Bay people are owners and which are engaged in foreign trade, are 
of 400 to 1,000 tons burden, are commanded by experienced men from 
Brookhaven and Islip towns, and by frugal and careful management pay a 
moderate profit. On the whole it may be said that both the foreign and 
the coasting trade as carried on by south side men and vessels is in a fairly 
prosperous state. 

These remarks, with the proper changes of names and places, may ap- 
ply to the north side of Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington towns, 
and also to ports on Peconic and Gardiner's Bays. On Port Jefferson and 
Conscience Bays, Setauket and Stony Brook harbors, and the waters of 
Smithtown, Northport bay and harbor, Centreport, Huntington, Lloyd's 
and Cold Spring harbors, more or less of ship-building and ship-owning 
grew up with the growth of the communities on their shores, and, especial- 
ly at the first named place, ran far beyond the proportional development of 
the village itself A number of conscientious, careful and skillful builders, 
taking a just pride in the work of their hands and laudably ambitious to 
excel in their chosen art, turned out of their small and poorly equipped yards 
some of the handsomest, swiftest and best constructed vessels of their class 
ever put afloat — vessels that gave renown to American ship-building and that 
made the name of Brookhaven (by which general term, in the absence of 
any separate port from which to hail, they were designated on the marine 
papers), known throughout the maritime world. A race of bold, active, 
hardy, energetic and intelligent seamen and masters grew up to man and to 
command these vessels, and they brought to their quiet homes on the 
wooded slopes or amid the grassy vallies of the beautiful North Side, tro- 
phies of peaceful conquest over the forces of nature or the combined power 
of time and space. To all the main marts of trade on all sea coasts they 
resorted, and from the least accessible and most distant markets they 
wrested something of the gain which is the soul of commercial activity. 
Time would fail me to speak in detail of the several places at which this 
industry of building and owning vessels to engage in fishing, in coasting, or 
in foreign trade, has been prosecuted by the enterprising descendants of 
those stout hearted and brawny-limbed settlers from the Suffolk of Old 
England which looked out upon the restless North Sea. At Sag Harbor, 
a Stirling and at Green. Hill (afterwards Greenpoift), at East Marion an4 



64 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

Orient, at the places previously named on both the north and south side of 
the county, many thousands of tons of shipping, comprising the smallest 
class of boats and yachts and rising to the majesty of one " big ship" that 
never floated, but actually including a ship of over 2,000 tons, have been 
added to the mercantile marine of our country. In the construction of 
these vessels large quantities of Long Island grown oak, chestnut and lo- 
cust timber have been used. There are now on the books of the Survey- 
or's office at Greenport 235 steam and sailing vessels aggregating 15,268.- 
82 tons engaged in actual and active commerce ; at Sag Harbor 20 vessels 
with an aggregate tonnage of 1,063.44 ; at Patchogue there has been a 
steady increase from 57 vessels and 934 tons in 1875 to 203 vessels and 
2,611.53 tons in 1883 ; at Port Jeff"erson there are 114 vessels and 14,858 
tons; at Cold Spring 99 vessels and 4,574.82 tons. This makes an 
aggregate of 671 vessels and 39,376.61 tons of shipping owned mostly in 
this county and engaged actively in commerce or the fisheries, manned by 
several thousands of Suffolk County's hardy seamen. The number of these 
seafaring men who are residents of our county is not definitely known, but I 
estimate it to be close upon 3,000, or about one-third of the active male 
inhabitants. 

A few words ought to be given to the specific matter of aids to navi- 
gation through the waters in and about this county. It was not till near 
the close of the last century that the general government, to which the con- 
stitution entrusts exclusive jurisdiction over the coastwise commerce and 
navigation of the country, began to provide light-houses, beacons and 
buoys for lighting and marking the coasts and channels of the waters of 
this county. Previously, for over a hundred years from the first settle- 
ment, the daring and adventurous men who went down to the sea on ships 
from our ports made their voyages without any of these aids to navigation. 
Long Island Sound, not less than the northern seaboard and the eastern 
bays, lay in darkness and in uncharted obscurity so far as can now be 
learned. Mariners upon its broad bosom had to steer their courses and 
note their distances unhelped by any other resources than their own quick 
eye and ready memory. Many year later, when much had been done in 
the direction of supplying this need, Daniel Webster remarked in substance 
that L. I. Sound ought to be lighted as brilliantly as a ball room. This 
was said in view of the large growth to which its commerce had then at- 
tained, long before Hell Gate improvements had been begun. Could he have 
lived to see the immense expansion which has gone on since that day and 
to note how vast the tide of tonnage that constantly flows up and down 
this noble arm of the sea, how much more of emphasis and weight might not 
have been added to his notable saying. The federal government has from 
time to time expended considerable sums in providing light-houses and 
light-vessels for points of prominent exposure on or off" the coasts of Long 
Island, and it has been liberal in placing buoys to mark the channels of its 
bays, and creeks, but there are other places that still need attention, and the 
necessity of one or more harbors of refuge on the long stretch of coast be- 
tween Orient Point and Port Jefferson Bay grows yearly greater. It has 
done an excellent work in improving the entrance to the last named 
bay and it is now building a breakwater to preserve part 
of the harbor at Greenport. Other points present claims to like 
improvements — claims which sooner or later will be heeded. The first 
light-house within the limits of the county was at Montauk, lighted for the 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 6$ 

first time in 1795 ; the latest is one in Cold Spring Harbor not yet com- 
pleted, and a light-ship is to be placed on Cerberus Shoal off Gardiner's 
Island. Long Island forms part of the Third Light-House District, which 
extends from Gooseberry Point, Mass., to include Squan Inlet, New Jersey, 
with its headquarters at I ompkinsville, Staten Island. The following is a 
list of light-houses, 14 in number, now in actual operation within this 
county, made up in the order of their establishment. I have the list here, 
but omit its reading ; it will be found in a footnote.* 

I come now to the Fisheries of Suffolk County. References made 
in the previous pages pyint out the facts that the early setrlers were from a 
section of England largely engaged in fishing, and that they were attracted 
to this island by the facilities it offered for commerce and for fishing. To 
their experienced eyes it was as evident then as it is to their descendants 
now, that a large, a wholesome, and a nutritious part of their subsistence 
might be obtained from the waters that enclose and interlace the land in 
loving embrace. Swimming and shell fish abounded and were easily taken 
in quantities to supply their wants. Should other resources fail, should 
nature frown upon their agriculture and the earth refuse its fruits, should 
the wild game desert its haunts and the untended flocks of the air omit to 
make thetr annual migrations, they yet had a sure reliance in the teeming 
storehouse that always lay open to their industry. With hooks and rude 
nets they came provided, and beds of fat oysters and succulent clams, of 
meaty mussels and prodigious periwinkles, spread invidngly before them. 
No fear of famine need oppress their thoughts as with busy axes they at- 
tacked the wilderness and let in the sunlight upon their little clearings. 
The advantages afforded by. the nearness of water to all parts of the eastern 
section of the county were appreciated as soon as seen, and account for its 
priority of sstdement. The same advantage led originally to the settlement 
and cultivation of the lands along the north and south sides of the county, 

*LIGHT-HOUSES AND I.IGHT-VESSELS IN SUFFOLK COUNTY WATERS. 

Remarks. 
Daboll's Trumpet. 

Steam siren ; south side of entrance to L. 

I. Sound. 
North of Setauket. 
East side of Fire Island Inlet. 
Bell; entrance to Sag Harbor. 

" Fisher's Island Sound. 
North point of (iardiner's Island. 
Huntington Bay; S. E. point of Llofd's 

Neck. 
Horton's Point, north of Southold vil- 
lage. 
Pondquogue Point. 
Entrance irom Gardiner's Bay to Onent 

and Greenport harbors and Peconic 

Bay; bell. 
Middle Ground, L. I. Sound, trumpet 

and bell. 
Off Fisher's Island Point, to mark 

north side of entrance to L. I. 

Sound. 
Bell, west end of Plum Island to mark 

enterance to Plum Gut, 
Cold Spring Harbor — not yet built. 
Cerberus Shoal — light- ship to be placed thereon. 



Name. 
Montauk 
Eaton's Neck 
Little Gull Island 


First Lighted. 

179s 
1798 
1806 


Old Field Pomt 
Fire Island 
Cedar Island 
North Dumpling 
Gardiner's Island 
Lloyd's Harbor 


1823 
1826 

1839 
1848 

1855 
1857 


Horton's Point 


1857 


Shinnecock 
Long Beach Bar 


1857 
1871 


Stratford Shoal 


1877 


Race Rock 


1878 


Plum Island 


1827 



66 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

to the comparative neglect of the central portions, though much of the lat- 
ter is arable and sufficiently fertile. It is of course known to all that the 
bulk of the population of the towns of Brookhaven, Smithtown, and Hunt- 
ington on the north, and Babylon, Islip and Brookhaven on the south, in- 
habit the regions lying within a few miles from the shores respectively of 
the Sound and Bay, while large tracts in the middle section are still given 
up to pine forests or scrub-oak plains. This peculiarity of the topographi- 
cal distribution of Suffolk County's population may be attributed, 
primarily, to the fact that its early settlers were fishermen 
and were naturallv drawn to the water side in preference 
to the interior. That they began the catching of fish for their own 
tables as soon as they landed may be said to be past doubt. While for 
many years no records exist to show what progress was made in this indus- 
try, it is reasonably certain that from the first they took out of the waters 
by their doors not only enough of food for present needs but also quant tics 
to be salted, smoked or dried for winter use. This would be likely enough 
in the nature of things, but its probability is increased toward certainty 
when we find from the records that with the first year of their settlement the 
Southampton people commenced the pursuit of whales in boats from the 
shore. How great a degree of hardihood and courage, of pluck and per- 
sistence, was needed to prosecute this conquest of Leviathan, \vith such 
rough boats or canoes and such inadequate gear as was then at hand, bold- 
ly chasing him out to sea, striking him with their rude harpoons and lances, 
holding tenaciously to their warps as he dragged them over the boiling 
surges for miles on miles, watching warily his death flurries, and then toil- 
somely towing his huge bulk to the shore, only those can estimate who, as 
I have done, have seen this mightiest game which any nimrod of land or 
sea pursues, stretched upon the sand and rolling grandly in the surf. 

As early as 1644 the male inhabitants of that town were divided into four 
squadrons, each having a ward or division of the beach to watch. Starbuck, 
the author of the only complete and comprehensive History df the American 
Whale Fishery, in a private note to liiyself, says : "I. look upon the set- 
tlers of Southampton and vicinity as among the first, if not the first, in our 
country, to pursue the art of whaling as an organized industry, as will ap- 
pear in my own work — pp. 9, 10, 11, etc. He there records this fact, con- 
clusive of'both the antiquity and the importance of the business, that " In 
1672 the towns of Southampton, East-Hampton, and Southold presented a 
memorial to the court at Whitehall, in which, as the ground for an appeal 
from Dutch oppression, they set forth that they have spent much lime and 
pains, and the greater part of their estates, in settling the trade of whale 
fishing in the adjacent seas, having endeavored it above these 20 years but 
could not bring it to any perfection till within these 2 or 3 years last past. " 
This shows that prior to 1652 the whale fishery along the south shore of 
the Island had become a settled and a diligently prosecuted industry. Mr. 
Egbert T. Smith informs me that in 1700 Martha Tunstall Smith, wife of 
his ancestor Gol. Smith, owned a whaling station at Smith's Point, manned 
by a crew of Indians who on an average killed 20 whales of a winter, and 
sent their oil and bone to England. In 1850 he himself established a sta- 
tion at which the crew had good success. In 1703, Lord Cornbury. Gov 
ernor of the Province, moved thereto by the fact that no whale oil was sent 
to New York from eastern Long Island, whence, as he says, "the 
greater quantity" of it then came, wrote to the Lords of Trade in England 



COMMEPCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. d*] 

complaining that Connecticut fills the island with European goods cheaper 
than New York can, and that the people here, being full of New England 
principles, would rather trade with Boston, Rhode Island and Connecticut 
than with New York. " In another letter he says that in 1 707 Long Island 
made 4,000 barrels of train oil, adding that " about the middle of October 
they began to look out for fish ; the season lasts all November, Decem- 
ber, January, February and a part of March ; a yearling will make about 
40 barrels of oil, a stunt qr whale will make sometimes 50, sometimes 60 
barrels of oil, and the largest whale that I heard of in these parts yielded 
1 10 barrels of oil and i, 200 weight of bone. " In 1678 a Boston merchant, 
named xMfred, had permission from the Dutch authorities to clear a vessel 
from Southampton direct for England with oil bought at that place. I cite 
these scattered facts in illustration of the extent and value to which the 
whale fishing in boats from the shore had grown in the first century after 
the settlement, not only because of their intrinsic interest, but because they 
are attested by undoubted records and may be accepted without hesitation. 
From them, in the absence of definite proof, it may safely be inferred that 
men who could with such rare skill and success prosecute the highest 
branch of fishing, would be equally skillful and successful in pursuit of the 
lesser fisheries. 

Beside the moss bunker or bony fish, which, then as now, came in 
countless numbers, and, while very palatable as food, were, then as now, 
overshadowed by the superior toothsomeness of other species and were 
thrown aside when caught or used merely as manure, the better sorts of 
fish most common in these waters were the sea and striped bass, black fish, 
cod, chequet, eels, flounders, flat-fish, frost fish, mackerel, perch, 'porgies, 
shad, sheepshead, tom-cod, etc., while of shell fish the most abundant and 
important were oysters, clams, crabs, lobsters, escalops, mussels and 
winkles. 

When the taking of these various swimming and shell fish in quantities 
beyond the needs of the local markets, and the sending them across the 
sound or to New York for sale, began to be a regular branch of trade, it is not 
possible to say, but it is probable that it did not become a business of much 
magnitude till long after the Revolution. Smacks, or vessels provided with 
wells in which to carry live fish, or with apartments for preserving them in 
ice, were not built till after the present century began. Neither were the 
modes of fishing at an earlier date such as to admit of keeping the fish any 
great length of time. They were caught with hook and fine, with seines, 
or with gill nets, and were dead when brought to land. As late as 1825 or 
'30, it is stated thar there was no demand in N. Y. market for dead fish. 
Using ice in which to box and ship dead fish is a modern invention and has 
grown up mostly within the past 20 or 25 years ; it was perhaps suggested 
and made possible by the putting on of steam packets, with the old propell- 
er Albany as one of the pioneers, to ply between our eastern bays and New 
York, and was promoted by the flicilities afforded to fishermen by the L. I. 
R. R. Co., which has derived and does still derive a large revenue from 
the transportation of boxed fish — how large, I could not ascertain. The 
earliest knowledge I have had of building fishing smacks in the county goes 
back to about 1810, when, and during succeeding years, several were built 
at Rocky Point (now East Marion), a few miles east of Stirling (as Green- 
port was then called), by Boss Jerry Brown, whose old shipyard was where 



68 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

the elegant country seat of Thomas A. Howell, Esq. , now is.* In 1818, as I 
have from the pen of a venerable friend, Mr. William O. Winters, of Brooklyn, 
formerly of East Marion, and long- engaged in the business, there were 11 
smacks belonging at Rocky Point, Orient and Stirling, but hailing from ^ag 
Harbor. As an item of local it not general interest I mention their names 
and the names of their Masters. These were : — the Rover, Capt. Robert 
Clark^; the Independence, Capt. Warren Griffin ; the Fame, Capt. Jamts 
Beebe ; the Comet, Capt. William Roberts ; the Rose, Capt. Warren 
Youngs; the Charlotte, Capt. James Gri fling ; the Jane, C.ipt. NoahRack- 
ett ; the Wasp, Capt. S. Rackett ; the Java, Capt. Gilson Vail; the Echo, 
Capt. E. Beebe ; the Dolphin, Capt. Daniel Harris. They were not clink- 
er built, as were the smacks first built at Mystic, Ct. , which were soon con- 
demned because of their tendency to leak, but were deep keel boats, with 
bluflf bows ; the lines of their models were not so sharp and graceful as 
those built now, but they were strongly put together and were excellent 
sea-boats, riding like ducks over the highest waves and sometimes safely 
encountering the fury of the severest storms in which larger craft went to 
the bottom or were helplessly disabled by the violence ol the sea. They 
ranged in size firom 15 to 22 tons, were sloop-rigged and had wells in which 

* After the foregoing had been written and this paper completed, I received from another 
venerable friend, Capt. John A.. Rackett, of Orient, in answer to an application a letter giv- 
ing some fresh informatioil and going a few years further back in point of time. The let- 
ter is of so readable a character that it has been thought proper to print it in full, as follows; 

Orient, January 16, 1884. 

Hon. Henry A. Reeves — Dear Sir: After an exhaustive investigation, from such 
dates as jve have, we find that in 1795 there were a number of men from the village oj 
Oysterpcnds (now Orient) engaged in the cod-fishery at the Straits of Bellisle on the coast of 
New Foundland. A few years afterward, so 1800, some of the young 
men of our own and the adjacent village of Rocky Point (now East 
Marion) were employed as fi=hermen in "well smacks" owned at New London and 
Mystic. A little anterior to the last date a nu.nber of families emigrated from the places 
last named to Rocky Point, 'they were directly or indirectly engaged in smack-fishing be- 
fore leaving those Connecticut towns. Induced doubtless by their description of the business 
as well as a desire to share in its profits, a number of young men from Oysterponds, Rocky 
Point and Sterling engaged in the business in smacks owned at New London and Mystic, 
some as fishermen, others as marketmen. Among the new comers was Capt. Amos Ryan, 
who settled at Rocky Point and built the house now occupied by Capt. Maxon Tuthill. The 
name of his smack we have not been able to ascertain. Capt. Ryan was an active, energet- 
ic man. On his way to Charleston, on one occasion, he fell in with an abandoned ship 
near the western edge of the gulf stream. With his small craft he succeeded in towing the 
ship to Charleston bar, where he had to anchor her, the wind preventing his getting her 
into harbor. During the night an easterly gale, came up and forced the ship ashore. 
Next morning the beach was strewn with cases and bales of dry goods. It seems hard that 
with a fortune so near his reach he was not permitted to enjoy it. 

Next we find the smack Patriot, Capt. Elisha Rackett. The transfer papers of this 
vessel are in our possession. They bear the date 1813. Whether or not this was the first 
smack built in our town we have not been able definitely to determine. The next was the 
Jupiter, Capt. Eliphelet Beebe. She was burned by the British in the war of 1812-14, and her 
remains lie embedded in the sand not far from the Long Beach phosphate works. The next, 
the Little Jay, was commanded by Capt. Henry iJeebe, ot Sterling. The fifth was the 
Jefferson, Capt. Grant B. Rackett. The sixth, aud last we have been able to find out about, 
is the Sylph, Capt. Barzellius Beebe. 

The above we believe to have been the pioneers of the smack-fishing industry in 1 le 
three villages or hamlets of Oysterponds, Rocky Point and Sterling. The names of the 
smacks immediately Succeeding those named above, we believe yi'U have. The ilate ol the 
commenc:ement of building and navigating the fishing smacks by the people of this town, 
we bdievetohave been about 1800. Respectfully yours, 

JOHN A. RACKETT. 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 69 

over 1,000 average codfish could be kept. About 1820 Boss Brown built 
three others, viz : the Mary, Capt. Moses Griffin ; the Emeline, Capt. 
Gamaliel King ; the Mars, Capt. Sylvester Rackett. After 1825, within a 
few years, 10 or 15 other smacks were built, and new fishing grounds ex- 
tending from Florida to New Foundland were occupied, while several new 
varieties offish were found. From 1836 to 1840 a larger size of smacks 
began to be built, and some were rigged as schooners. The first smacks' 
crews consisted, beside the masters, of two and sometimes three men and a 
boy who acted as cook. They started about the middle of March for cod- 
fish, cruising off" Montauk, Block Island and No Man's Land. An aver- 
age catch would be 800 to 1,000 fish, taken with the hook from the vessels 
deck. They carried their cargo to the old Fly Market in Burling Slip, N. 
Y. , where fish were retailed by a man assigned to each smack and receiving 
an average share with the crew ; the vessel paid 2-5ths of the expense and 
took 2-5ths of the proceeds, and the remainder was divided among the 
crew equally. About May i they began fishing for mackerel at Sandy Hook, 
using trolling lines, each man looking alter two lines — a slow mode of 
taking this nimble fish. About the middle of June they went to their for- 
mer ground and also to Vineyard Sound for sea bass. This was kept up' 
till Oct. 1st, when, on the same grounds, they resumed codfishing until 
December or January. A fair catch of sea bass would be from 1,500 to 
1,800. For this fish a new ground was discovered about 1823, off the 
Capes of the Delaware, where fish were plenty but small, seldom exceeding 
a pound in weight, and in 2 or 2.]/^ days they would catch from 2,000 to 
2,300. The season there lasted from May to August. 

On June 4,. 1825, in violent storm, two smacks were lost with all on 
board, viz ; the Fame, Capt. James Beebe with his son Stafford and Joseph 
and Benjamii' Griffin, brothers ; and the Emeline, Capt. Daniel Griffin, his 
brother David, Joel King and Horace Clark. These are names that occur 
to-day in the business of smack fishing from East jNIarion, which has long 
been and now is more distinctivel\- a community of fishermen than any oth- 
er in the county or p^^rhaps the State. At the present time there are hail- 
ing from the port of (ireenport, which includes East Marion and Orient, 21 
schooner and 4 sloop smacks, of an aggregate tonnage of 937.36 tons ; 
same of them areas handsome craft, with as fine lines, shapely models, clean 
run, and complete outfit of rigging, sails and all needed equipments, as it 
they had been designed for pleasure yachts. In those little smacks of 15 
or 18 tons, with no chronometer clock, no binocular glass, no marine in- 
strument other than a compass and a quadrant, and with no further aid to 
safety than the imperfect charts of those days, four or five bold, self-reliant 
mariners bravely threw themselves upon the broad ocean and made trips as 
tar south as Charleston, Savannah, or even Key West ; sometimes passing 
months in fishing in those waters and finding markets for their catch in the 
cit'es named, and going and returning not by any inside canal route but out 
on the open sea, past the stormy Hatteras and down the inhospitable 
beaches of the Carolinas. Taking in about $150 worth of provisions in N. 
Y. , with 5 gallons of rum at a shilling a quart to last the cruise, thev made 
harbors if occasion required but if caught in a gale would lay to under a 
trysail and ride it out like a petrel of the storm, when a frigate might have 
foundered. When fishing they were in 12 to 20 fathom water, and 
when loaded with bass would run into port; in this business they would 
occupy 6 to 9 months, generally from October to July, but sometimes 



70 COMMERCE, KAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

would go down to Jacksonville to get sheepshead for Charleston or to Key 
West to get groupers for Cuba. One of the first smacks built, the Venus, 
Capt. Simeon Price, with a crew of four foundered in Charleston Harbor, 
inside of Sullivan's Island, and was never seen afterwards. 

Blue-fish, now so prominent as a food fish, were not much thought of 
till about 1852. [In the course of the inquiry before the U. S. Senate 
Committee investigating the causes of the alleged scarcity of food fishes, in 
1882, Samuel H. Wilier, a Brooklyn dealer in fish for 49 years, testified that 
he could remember when 2,000 pounds of blue-fish could not be sold in 
New York in one day, at 2 cents per pound ; and Caleb Hale}', a veteran 
fish dealer in Fulton Market, testified that it was only within ten years pre- 
vious to that date that blue-fish had become a desirable market fish. 
Striped bass were abundant along the south shore ; immense 
hauls, sometimes amounting to many wagon loads, were taken in 
seins and often sold for 2 or 3 cents per pound ; they ranged in weight 
from I to 80 pounds, and tradition tells of one one-hundred pounder. * 
Sometimes better prices prevailed and good profits rewarded the fishermen's 
labors. At and near Smith's Point, for the use of the shore to low water 
mark as a landing place for the use of their nets, bass fishermen have paid the 
owner as high as $500 in a year. The privilege at that place is still paid 
for. In early times there were three inlets into Great South Bay east oi 
Patchogue, the last one of which did not close till 1820. In consequence 
the water was salt and all the better sorts of fish abounded, as did oysters 
and clams. The fisheries were productive and valuable ; the\- were held 
under the Smith patent and the patent to Brdokhaven town — the latter in 
its agreement with William Smith assuming a penal obligation of $20,000 to 
duly attend to the fisheries. About the years 1S25 to 1840 bass fishing in 
the bajs and ocean was extensively carried on during the Fall and \Mnter. 
Large quantities were convened to New York m wagons. It is estimated 
that the quantity sold would net at least $5,000 yearly, though at times the 
price was only lor ijj cents per pound. Eels were also plenty and many 
thousands of dollars' worth were annually sold : eeling is still a large in- 
dustrv, though less than at that time. Sheepshead were sometimes abun- 
dant, but were not the high-priced luxury they have since become. In 
1828. the East Bay being full of bass, there came on a hard storm early in 
the winter and drove all the bass into Quantuck Bay, a body of water cov- 
ering some 200 acres. During that winter, by a count kept by a resident 
of Quogue, 75,000 bass were taken out of that bay, all the barns and out- 
houses "being filled with them through the winter. When gray-beards of 50 
or 60 years were boys, eels were so numerous that, even at 7 or 8 cents per 
dozen, any industrious m^n could earn $100 with his spear in a winter. 
Of recent years large quantities of perch have been taken in the East Bay, 
and in the winter of 1 882 over $10,000 worth was sold. Crabs in the 
same bay have also become an important item, as many as 200 barrels hav- 
ing been shipped in a day from one station. 

Within a few years the taking of codfish in the ocean from Quogue to 
Moriches has grown to large proportions, about 150 men being engaged 
last winter and from West-Hampton depot 285,000 pounds of cod were 



♦Subsequent to this writing the largest cod fish on record — a fish weighing over 100 
pounds, whose dressetl weight was S9 pounds — was caught in the ocean off Montauk by N. 
Doniiny's company of East-H;unpton fishermen. 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 71 

sent by rail, besides large quantities from Quogue and other stations. Of 
the oyster fishery in the Great South Bay and the bays on the north side of 
the county, I sliall not attempt to speak in any detail. The facts are too 
many and the ideas they suggest are too extensive, to be compressed into 
such an article as this. Its growth, its present extent, and its prospective 
greatness are all themes that might occupy attention for hours. Enough to 
say that several hundreds of boats, thousands of persons, and large 
amounts of capital are engaged in its prosecution, and in the South and 
East Bays alone it has been computed that the value of the boats, scows, 
and apparatus used in the fishery is fully half a million dollars, 'while the 
number of families supported wholly or in part from this source is from 
900 to 1,000, besides 200 to 300 unmarried men earning wages. Its yearly 
products count up into the hundreds of thousands of bushels. The taking 
of clams for the market from Peconic and Shinnecock bays, and in the 
waters of the north shore, especially Smithtown harbor, has grown to be 
a large business, but does not date back much, if any, further than 40 or 
50 years ago. The Connecticut markets have long been supplied from the 
east end and the bays along the north side have sent quantities of both the 
long and round varieties to New York. 

Escalops are of still later introduction as an item of commercial fish- 
ing- — comparatively fe>/ being taken 15 years ago. Of recent winters large 
quantities have been taken by boats from New Suffolk, Greenport and other 
places on Peconic Bay, and to a lesser extent in Northport and Hunting- 
ton Bays. Lobsters were found many years ago near the rocks along the 
north shore of Southold town, and at Montauk ; also near Plum Gull and 
Fisher's Ishmd and in some years considerable quantities have been caught 
at thosj places. 

The fishey that might have the greatest popular attractiveness for the 
romance and picturesqueness attaching to many of its incidents; for the 
striking illustrations of personal heroism it developed; for the extent to 
which it was carried and the wide .scope of its operation, covering the acces- 
sible waters of every ocean; for the number of persons and amount of capi- 
tal engaged and the values of its products; and for the general prominence 
before the country and before the world which it gave to Long Island 
mariners, vessels and ports, is now extinct within our county, where once 
it flourished to a degree not easily appreciated at this remove of time. Of 
course I refer now to the whale fishery as it was carried on at Sag Harbor, 
Greenport, New Suffolk, Jamesport and Cold Spring. I have here a mass 
of notes and memoranda relating to this fishery, drawn from all the sources 
to which I could gain access, including every historical document or works 
available to my examination, and many traditionary and individual remi- 
niscences, with espe,ial stress to be laid on a manuscript sketch of the 
whaling business at the ])ort of S.ig Harbor prepared by the late Luther D. 
Cook, of that place, and most kindly placed at my service by his son, Ben- 
jamin A. Cook, of New York, and which I have found a storehouse replete 
with recitals of the utmost interest to aJl descendants of the whalemen 
whose voyages formed so larg:i a part in the past prosperity of my native 
village. But, with great reluctance, I am constrained to lay them all aside 
as their reading would tax too severely your patience, perhaps already 
wearied with this necessaily discursive and ill-digested paper. 

I will, how-ever, detain you a moment longer on this head to group 
a few prominent facts in illustration of the magnitude and value of this 



72 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

now vanished trade. 

Starting in 1790 with one brig of 150 tons, it grew slowly 'till 1820, 
when six vessels brought to port 531 barrels of sperm and 7,850 barrels of 
whale oil. In the 30 years from 1820, to 1850, for which period Mr. 
Cook has full records of arrivals at the port of Sag Harbor, with their car- 
goes, the aggregates are 490 vessels bringing in 83,101 1-2 barrels of 
sperm and 812,595 1-2 barrels of whale oil and 6,728,809 pounds of whale- 
bone, worth at very low average prices nearly 115,000,000. In 1847 there 
were 32 arrivals, bringing 3,919 barrels of sperm and 63,712 barrels of 
whale oil and 605,340 pounds of whalebone, worth, Mr. Cook says, at 
then current rates, $996,413. In that year Sag Harbor owned 63 whale 
ships, with an aggregate of 22,233 tons. The whaling business at that 
port was then at its highest level, and from that year may be dated the be- 
ginning of its decline. 

I must ask your attention for but a short time longer to what is now 
the most important fishery interest in our county — an interest that has 
grown up with the life time of one generation, and yet overtops all other 
interests of the sort within this State, except, perhaps, the oyster fishery. 
When first our ancestors began to utilize that branch of the herring family 
which is now known as the menhaden by using them to fertilize their fields, 
cannot be precisely stated. The earliest mention, so far as I have learned, 
is in Spofford's Gazetteer, where it is stated that about the year 1797 a seine 
at Town Harbor, Southold, drew to land at one haul 250,000 moss bunk- 
ers. The knowledge of this fact was derived by the compiler of the Ga- 
zetteer from a paper entitled " Observations on Manures" read in 1795 before 
the Society (State) for the Promotion of Agriculture by Hon. Ezra L'Hom- 
medieu, of Southold village, one of the foremost men in the long period of 
his active career and one of the brightest intellects to which Southold Town 
ever gave birth. In this paper he says: "This year I saw 250,000 taken 
at one draught, which must have been much more than 100 tons;" and 
he adds: " One seine near me caught more than one million the last sea- 
son, which season lasts about one m'onth."' As this paper was read in 
March, before menhaden ordinarily visit these waters, it is fair to presume 
that the paper was prepared during the previous Fall or Winter, and that 
the words " this year" must have referred to the season of 1794. How 
much earlier than this latter date the industry of taking menhaden for ma- 
nure had become established as an important adjunct to the agriculture of 
the eastern towns, it is impossible to say, but doubtless it had been prose- 
cuted more or less for forty or fifty years — perhaps longer. [See note B, 
page 77. 

Both in Peconic Bay and Long Island Sound, and on the ocean shore 
in the Hamptons, seines were used from an early period in the history of 
the eastern towns to take bunkers for manure. Regular organizations were 
formed, seines and boats adapted to the work were procured, and fish 
houses for storage and for dwelling, were put up at suitable points on the 
bay or beach shores, and for several weeks of the Spring and Fall the crews 
made a business of fishing whenever the weather served and fish were to be 
seen — the catch being shared among themselves and the owners of the 
outfit. This practice, while superseded or mainly forced to give way by 
later improved methods, is still maintained to some limited extent, at a few 
points. 

But the use of Menhaden as a material for the manufacture of oil for 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 73 

tanning and dressing leather, for rope making, for painting, and foi" various 
other uses, while it was known that those fish contained oil and the process 
of extracting it had been actually applied many years before in some 
scattered and inconsequential way, may be said to be not yet forty years 
old. The late Judge Osborn, of Jessup's Neck, on Peconic Bay, w-as the 
first to put up try works for rendering menhaden by boiling the fish in 
water in large iron pots set in masonry, and skmiming off the oil that rose 
to the surface. Those pot works, as such estiblishments were called, were 
put up in a lot near his house and not tar from the shore, where the fish 
could be conveniently landed from the seine and carted to the works. 

This was in the year 1847 or 1848. The oil made in this way was 
heavy, black and rank, and was used, by the Judge, for coarse painting 
and other purposes on his [)remises, and some small amounts were sold to 
other parties. Some years later he put up steam works on Jessup's Point. 
On July 4, 1850, thirty-three years ago, the first steam factory in Suffolk 
County, for making oil and guano from menhaden, was begun at Chequet 
Point, Shelter Island, directly opposite Greenport, by Daniel D. Wells and 
his oldest son lienry E. Wells, both then residents of Greenport, the 
former since deceased, the latter yet living and one of its foremost citizens, 
from whose lips I have received entertainnig information concerning this 
pioneer undertaking which led the w^ay for the great enterprise that now 
lifts itself into the fore-front of the nation's marine activities. They had 
visited and inspected the works of Judge Osborn, and benig acute practical 
observers and shrewd men of business, they had noted its possibilities and 
needs. They procured a steam boiler, which not proving powerful enough 
was exchanged for a larger and that again for a still larger. The fish were 
procured from shore seines at Orient and East Marion. The Yaphank 
seine, in the latter harbor, on one occasion enclosed a vast school of fish 
and 1,000.000 were landed from it; an equally large haul was made by a 
seine in the upper bay; and 1 believe that on Short Beach a seine once 
landed nearly or quite i 1-4 millions of fish. Usually at first thev had 
some two million fish in a season, afterwards three millions, and within a 
few years the supply largely increased. The very first year of the business 
they dried some of the scrap or refuse, as an experiment, on a small plat- 
form, and then ground it in a large cofiee mill — this being the first dried 
and ground scrap ever exhibited. After continuing in the business for two 
years at Chequet Point they bought land at White iiill, a little ways west of 
Prospect, Shelter Island, and moved the factory there in the spring of 1853, 
but before the work of rebuilding had been completed they sold the estab- 
lishment to Colonel Morgan, of Poquannock, near Groton, Conn., where 
it was removed and erected, being the first factory of the sort in that State. 

The same flill they built anotht.T factory at White Hill, in connection 
with Harmon and Maxon Tuthill and the latter's brother-in-law, Mr. 
Strong, all of East Marion. They bought their first purse-net of Capt. 
Benj. Tallman, of Portsmouth, R. I., who originated this mode of catch- 
ing menhaden in deep water — an invention, not patented, but which has 
been relatively of as great utility to this fishery as Whitney's invention was 
to the production of cotton. The first purse-net used in Peconic Bay was 
bought a year or two previous by Capt. David Smith and others. The 
Wellses bought out the Tuthills' and Strongs' interest, and from 1854 till 
now the business has been conducted under the same firm name of D. D. 
Wells & Sons. At one time they had one seine fishir^g in Orient Harbor 



74 COMMERCE, KAVlGAtlON AND FISHERIES. 

and two' purse-net gangs fishing in the bays; afterwards a third. At first 
cat-rigged boats were used both for the seines and for carryaways to convey 
the fish to the factory; sloop yachts, after handsome and finely equipped . 
vessels costing several thousand dollars, were introduced about 1868, and 
being built chiefly for speed, they made, until steam supplanted them a few 
years ago, a most picturesque as well as novel feature of a busin -ss strictly 
utilitarian — perhaps the only business which ever did or fairly could warrant 
the employment of vessels fitted by model, rig, finish, and sailing qualities 
to rank with pleasure yachts. In 1870 a small steamer designed for towing 
the carry-away boats — in which manhaden are carried from the place where 
a haul or "set" of the purse-net may he made to the factories — about the 
Bays, with a view to saving time in delivery of the fish, was built at the ship- 
yard of Boss Oliver H. Bishop in Greenport; but she -was not adapted to 
the work in all respects, and did not develop spoed enough to make her 
profitably serviceable, and so after full trial she was sold to the Greenport 
and Shelter Island Ferry Company to be converted to its use as a ferry boat 
between the two places. In 1872 Messrs. Wells & Co. had built for their 
Maine factory the steamer Vvm. A. Wells, modeled, constructed and 
engined with special referenc(; to the business of following menhaden into 
deep water off" the coast of Maine, towing or following the purse-boats to 
the fish, hoisting their catch by steam scoops into the hold, and after steam- 
ing back to the factory discharging them in the same way into cars that 
carry them on inclined railways to the rendering tanks. In the following 
year the Ranger Oil Co. , of Greenport, of w^hich Thomas F. Price was 
(and is) managing agent, built at South Bristol, Maine, the steamer E. F. 
Price, for Cap. Elijah Tallman, of Rhode Island, who has remained in 
the service of the same company ever since, and is now ''commodore" of 
its flejt; this was the first menhaden steamer actually employed in fishing 
on Peconic and Gardiner's Bays. The first steamer ever built for this 
fishery was the Seven Brothers, built, and I believe still owned, bv the 
enterprising firm of Church Bros., of Tiverton, Rhode Island. Hawkins 
Bros., of Jamespcjrt. in 1874, brought their first steamer into the Bav. 
Wells & Sons, after carrying on the business at White Hill- for nearl\- 20 
years, with varying fortune but with a preponderance on the right side of 
the account, were led by the growing opposition of their new neighbors at 
Prospect to pull up stakes in 1871 and remove to North West, in East- 
Hampton town, where they now have their factory in active operation, its 
cash products for the past .season exceeding $53,000. Their largest sea- 
son's catch was in 1879, ^^hen 18,000,000 fish, caught by two gangs and 
averaging 4 gallons of oil to the thousand fish, were rendered. On another 
year, from 6,200,000 fish they made 62,000 gallons, or a full average of 10 
gallons to the thousand. That year, from one particular boat load of fish, 
which was kept separate and accurately measured, an average yield of 24 
gallons to the thousand was got. The fattest fish and largest yield of oil 
ever known, is reported from Shinnecock Bayf where some menhaden that 
had been shut up in brackish water grew to such size and fatness that they 
yielded at the rate of 48 gallons to the thousand. 

Wells & Co. , a firm with D. D. and H. E.Wells holdingone-third interest 
were the first to build a steam factory in the State of Maine, having put up 
one at South Bristol in 1864, two years before any others in that State. 
Five years later they removed to Virginia, at Farmer's Creek, it being also 
the first factory in that State; not succeeding there they removed 't back to 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. ^5 

the same place in Maine, where they still own it but it is not now in opera- 
tion, the tish having deserted that coast for four years past, until late in the 
present season. Capt. B. C. Cartwright, of Shelter Island, one of the 
veterans of this fishery, began with a steam factory at Ram Head in i860, 
and in 1872 removed it to Bunker City, where be now carries it on success- 
fully. I have not time to enumerate the various factories and pot works 
that have been started on Shelter Island and descril)e their several vicissi- 
tudes. Of the 15 or 16 that have had longer or shorter careers on that 
island, only that of Capt. Cartwright, known as the Peconic Oil Co., and 
of Hawkins Bros., near the same place, remain. On Gardiner's and Pe- 
conic Bays, beside 8 or 10 now closed or dismantled, there ^re 12 factories 
in active operation, viz: at Promised Land, Abbe & Co., George F. 
Tuthill & Co., Di.\on, Jonas Smith, T. F. Price & Co., Elsworth Tuthill & 
Co., O. H. Bishop and the pot works of Wilham M. Tuthill & Sons; at 
North West, D. D. Wells & Sons and Sterling Oil Co. ; at Bunker City, 
Peconic Oil Co. and Hawkins Bros. ; at Long Beach, Orient, the Atlantic 
& Virginia Fertilizer Co. During the season just about to close, these 
factories empioyed 7 double and 20 single gang steamers costing ■ 
$10,000 to $25,000 each and averaging 29 men for 
the former and 16 for the latter, or a total of 528 
men on the steamers, beside 6 sailing gangs averaging 13 men, or 78 in 
all, while the factorits employ an everage uf 30 men, ur 360 in all, making 
an aggregate of nearly 1,000 men employed m this industry on the two 
bays. A careful approximate estimate of the past season's catch, by which 
is meant the fish brought and rendered at the factories on those bays is 
145,000,000, ot which about 134,000,000 were taken in steamers, averaging 
something over 5,000,000 to a steamer; while the sailing gangs have 
averaged about 2,000,000. Wells & Co., have made 894 barrels of oil and 
1,100 tons of scrap, and have consumed about $5,000 worth or 1,000 tons 
of coal. The carrying of coal and salt to the factories and taking oil and 
scrap from them to market, makes freight lor many vessels. In 1880 the 
total value of products of the menhaden fishery in the State of New York, 
as tabulated for the U. S. Census of that year, was $1, 114, 158, of which all 
but the products of lour factories on Barren Island, one of them owned by 
Hawkins Bro.s., of Jamesport, and all of them mainly or wholly supplied 
with fish by fishermen from this county, was a result of the combination of 
capital, labor and skill by residents ot Suffolk County in a manufacture of 
which the raw. material had no value until taken out of the teeming sea and 
applied to the uses of mankind. Certainly, than this no branch ot human 
industry could be more intrinsically worthy of commendation and encour- 
agement. 

Mr. Louis C. d'Homergue, Secretary of the U. S. Menhaden Oil and 
Guano Association, which was organized in January 1874, was the first to 
make a business ot drying scraps and shipping it to Europe; he had a fac- 
tory for this purpose at Hay Beach, Shelter Island, previous to 1876. He 
has kindly furnished me with many useful data respecting the work of the 
Association and the stadstics of the business in the United States for every 
year since its organization, but I regret to find my time will not allow me 
to make use of them. In 1882, writing to U. S. Senator Lapham, he esti- 
mated that the business then employed about $4,000,000 of capital, over 
90 steam and 250 sailing vessels, and 3,000 men; that the 71,000 tons of 
dry scrap manufactured that year was used as the basis in the composition 



76 COMMERCE, iSTAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

of 284,000 tons of commercial fertilizers, applied in the South at the rate of 
250 pounds per acre to raise one bale of cotton, and that thus the scrap or 
guano made from menhaden after the oil has been expressed becomes the 
active ammonial agent in raising 2, 272,000 bales of cotton, besides corn, 
sugar cane, and other products. 

A few words more and I am done. Many of this audience may have 
but an inadequate idea of the actual extent to which the fisheries, of our 
County are carried, and it is certain that by the world at large they are 
quite generally underestimated, if, indeed, they are known at all. For 
information of those who care to know somethinij of this topic, I read from 
an official statement kindly sent me by Mr. Nimmo, some figures respecting 
only the products of the fisheries (menhaden and edible swimming and sh^ll 
fish) brought into the U. S. Customs District of- Sag Harbor — which 
includes the Surveyor's District of Greenport — from 1872 to 1883, inclu- 
sive, the fiscal year being meant in each case and ending June 30. It will 
be noted that this leaves out of computation the products of the 
oyster, clam and other fisheries in L I. Sound, in the ocean, and in the 
bays on the south and north sides of the county, and relates only to the 
towns bordering on Peconic and Gardiner's bays. During those twelve 
years the total reported value brought in from the sea at those ports was 
$7,822,928. In the one year of 1882 the value so reported was $1,400,850. 
While, in the absence of authentic figures returned from any other portion 
of the county, it is impossible to give accurate results as to the products of 
fisheries in the large aria unreported, it' may, I think safely be reckoned 
that their value would range each year from $400,000 to $600,000, and 
that a low average would be half a million dollars — making for the twelve 
years referred 10, an aggregate af at least $6,000,000. 'Indeed, with every 
disposition to be moderate in ths esfmate, I deem it entirely within bounds 
to believe that the fisheries of Suffolk county during the past twelve years 
have yielded to thdse engaged in them fully $15,000,000, or the large yearly 
average of $1,250,000. In this estimate account is made only of commer- 
cial values, omitting altogether the large quantities of fish taken from the 
waters of the county and consumed by its inhabitants, the cash value Oi 
which it is obviously impossible to state. [See note C. page 78 1. 



Note A. — The following should have appeared as a foot note on page 
64, but through an oversight was omitted: 

It is perhaps proper, as a passing tr.bute to one of the foremost men 
to whom Suffolk County ever gave birtli, to refer to the eminent services 
rendered to his country by Nathan Sanford, who was born at Bridgehamp- 
ton 1777, became a Senator of the United States, succeeded the immortal 
Kent as Chancellor of this State, was again a Senator and the colleague of 
VanBurjn, and in 1825 was defeated by John C. Calhoun as a candidate 
for the Vice Presidency. In 1815, at the close of the unequal but glorious 
struggle which this country had maintained for three years against all the 
naval power of Great Britain to assert and defend "Sailors' Rights and the 
Freedom of the Seas,'' Mr. Sanford devoted the full energy of his powerful 
intellect to a .restoration of American commerce, prostrated by the war, 
and aided largely in bringing about that restoration on a sound and healthy 
bas s. This much seems due to a Suffolk County statesman, who remem- 
bered the ancestors from whom he sprung, and the toilers by the sea among 
whom his early years had been spent. 



COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 



77 



Note B. — As showing the extent to which the business of taking men- 
haden in shore seines for manure had been carried in the waters of Southold 
town during the first half of the present century, I quote from the Repub- 
lican Wokhfiian, of July 4, 1835, the following "statement of fish (called 
bunkers) that have been taken in the waters of the town of Southold the 
present season," and append theret-^ the proof of its authenticitv in the 
shape of a certificate from the assessors of the town: 

We, the undersigned, do certify that the foregoing is a correct state- 
ment of fish taken in the to>vn of Southold, the present season, being 
drawn up under our supervision. That the length of seine employing ten 
men is about 150 rods, exclusive of line, which is generally double that 
length. 'I'hat those seines employing a greater or less number of men are 
in the same proportion in regard to length. That the average time 
employed in fishing has been about five weeks. That the number of fish 
requisite for manuring an acre of land sufficient for any crops is 15,000. 
That the prices of fish have ranged from 50 to 75 cents per thousand, and 
consequently the expense of manuring an acre will range from seven dollars 
fifty cents to eleven dollars twenty-five cents. ^ That the number of porgies, 
or skippaugs, taken in Southold bay by fishing smacks and carried through 
Helgate to New York market, at a single tide, on or about the i8th inst. , 
has exceeded 100,000; the average weight of the same is one pound each, 
and the proceeds of the sale 3, 500 dollars. 

John Clark, ] 

Oliver Corey, | Assessors of the 

Henry H. Terry. \- 
Joshua Hallock, | Town of Southold. 
Barnabas Wines, J 

Southold, June 30th, 1835. 

It is further stated that about 12,000,000 menhaden were taken in the 
town of Riverhead, the same season. 



Name of Seine. 


Number of Fish. 


Number of Men on Each, 


Weazle 




540 


000 


9 


Dragon 


I 


300 


000 


10 


Cove 


2 


900 


000 


20 


Coots 


I 


340 


000 


16 


Crow 




850 


000 


8 


Shunks 


I 


500 


000 


10 


Munfudgeon 


I 


440 


000 


8 


Wolf 


I 


416 


500 


10 


Sea Serpent 


I 


750 


000 


10 


Turks 


3 


320 


000 


20 


Hawks 


I 


70c 


000 


10 


Greek 


I 


650 


000 


10 


Owl 




200 


000 


8 


Water Witch 




400 


o«o. 


8 


John Garner 




480 


000 


8 


Jackson 


2 


^Z3 


000 


10 


Union 


2 


450 


000 


12 


Opposition 




574 


000 


7 


Night Hawk 


I 


100 


000 


7 


Indian Chief 


2 


000 


000 


10 



78 COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 

Name of Seine, Number of Fish. Number of Men on Eacli. 

Little Jackson 500 000 5 

Little States 515 006 5 

Pipe's Neck 550 000 5 

*Two seines not heard from. 



31.218,500 220 

Note C- — In partial acknowledgement of the kind help I have had 
from various quarters toward the preparation of material for this paper, it is 
due that I should mention those to whom I am under obligation for some 
of the more important information it contains. These are: Joseph Nimmo, 
Jr., Treasury Department, Washington; James H. Wardle, Census Bureau, 
Washington; Hon. Perry Belmont, House of Representatives, Washington; 
Geo. R. Howell, State Librarv, Albany; Alex. Starbuck. Waltham, Mass,; 
Benj. A. Cook, New York;' Charles P. Cook, Sag Harbor; L. C. 
d'Homergue, Brooklyn; Wm. O. Winters, Brooklyn; James E. Bayles, 
Port Jeflferson; Jesse Carll, Northport; Jesse Jarvis, Northport; E. M. 
Jones, Cold Spring; Charles R. Street, Huntington; O. Perry Smith, 
Patchogue; W. J. Terry, Sayville; Egbert T. Smith, Mastic; Dan'l B. 
Cook, West-Hampton; James H. Pierson, Southampton; B. D. Sleight, 
Sag Harbor; John H. Hunt, Sag Harbor; Gilbert H. Cooper, Sag Har- 
bor; Wm. Lowen, Collector, Sag Harbor; B. C. Cartwright, Shelter 
Island; N. Hubbard ■ Cleveland, Southold; Rev. Dr. Epher Whitaker, 
Southold; W. Z. King, Surveyor of Customs, Greenport; Dan'l. T. Vail, 
East Marion; John A. Racke'tt, Orient; Edwin P. Brown, Orient; Ira B. 
Tuthill, Jr., New Suffolk; Wm. E. Parrotte, Northport. 




-^LITERHRYfCDLTURE,^ 



sxj:En:Enoi_.:E^ ooxjistt^'. 



lON. "^OHN 



'EID. 



TO attempt a formal or extended address at this late hour would be an 
inexcusable trespass upon your patient forbearance. In listening to 
the elaborate, scholarly discourses which have occupied the day and 
evening, you have faintly realized the ordeal to which the fathers were sub- 
jected fifty-two times each year. Instead of our suggestive seven, their 
sermons were divided into two parts. When audience and preacher were 
exhausted, a brief respite was permitted for a frugal dinner; and then, re- 
freshed and strengthened for their w'ork, the afternoon would be occupied 
in completing the masterpiece and enforcing its precepts. 

The gentlemen who have for many hours entertained, instructed and, 
I trust, not wearied you by their sermons, allow me the clerkly. office of 
saying "amen" to their local ofterings — hence my talk must be passing 
brief, even though it be iliscursive and obscure. I fully realize that even 
a hurried glance at the topics consigned to my tender mercy, must be, to 
adopt a Motleyism, a kind of Barmecide's feast in which my hearers have 
to play the part of Shacabac and believe in the excellence of the lamb 
stuffed wdth pistachio nuts, the flavor of the wines, and the perfume of the 
roses, upon my prejudiced assertion and without assistance from their own 
perceptions. 

The people of this county were so engrossed in subduing a wilderness 
and substituting civilization for barbarism that during the early years of 
their advent but few memorials of their progress have given jo}' to the his- 
torim. They evidently ileemed their 'acts hostages for worldly fame and 
failed to exhibit the egotism of making a written commendation of their 
personal achievements. Indeed, we find this reticence one of the pecu- 
liarities of our colonists, and they neither became their own trumpeters 
nor paid a professional flatterer to make them — on paper — the grandest 
gentlemen the world e'er saw. Fortunatel}' their children have outgrown 
this inexQusable modesty, and the would-be great and good of the Nine* 



8o ■ LITERARY CULTURE. 

teenth Century will not die and make no sign concerning the unequalled 
merits which they are unable to conceal. By careful groping, we occa- 
sionally find a land-mark in the dusty dells of departed years; and by con- 
trasting these with the history we are making, we may ascertain whether 
the precepts of the past have brought guerdons to the practical prosaic, 
present. 

The sponsors of our county organization were strong men — bold, in- 
dependent, intelligent. While few could boast a classical education, there 
were less who were profoundly ignorant. The Bible, Milton and Shake- 
speare, could be found in many homes of every neighborhood, and they 
were earnestly studied not pedantically displayed. They had left a world 
of statesmen, philosophers and poets whose works have immortalized their 
authors. Algernon, Sydney, Cromwell, Newton, Bacon, Locke, Milton 
and Dryden — intellectual kings who would be the pride and glory of any 
age — were to our progenitors as familiar as household words. Their at- 
tainments, though limited, were solid and substantial, not flippant and 
fanciful. Thought preceded action, and wisdom brought its own exceed- 
ing great reward. The)' regarded a great book as a ship deep freighted 
with immortal treasures, breaking the sea of life into fadeless beauty as it 
sails; carrying to every shore seeds of truth, goodness, piety, love, to flow- 
er and fruit jierennially in the soil of the heart and mind. 

Their methods of education blended literature andreligion. Having 
no public schools, the clergynian of each parish devoted five and a half 
days in each week- during the winter, for the summer was given to man- 
ual labor — to instructing the children in " the three R's, '' ending in a Sun- 
day sermon whose length was only exceeded by its breadth and brimstone. 
That was the orthodox era, and earthly threatenings and contemplated 
punishments in the world to come made the Day of Doom a continued 
guest and fireside companion. At that time our county comprised about 
eighteen hundred souls — the entire province numbered but ten thousand — 
and less than forty preacher-pedagogues moulded the minds of the young 
and strengdiened the faith of the mature. This method was varied but 
little during Suftblk"s first century; and it seems to have been akin to that 
adopted by its sister counties. About this time, William Smith, the histo- 
rian, wrote of the educational condition of our people: " Our schools are 
"of the lowest order — the instructors want instruction; and through along 
"and shameful neglect of all the arts and sciences, our common speech is 
"extremely corrupt; and the evidences of bad taste, both as to thought and 
"language, are visible in all our proceedings, public and private." Yet 
the people were striving for something better, anticipating the coming day 
when generous culture should make men little less than gods. While they 
were hampered by iron fortune, they held a kinship with those grand spirits 
of whom Lowell wrote that the country grew 

"Strong thro' shifts, an' wants, an' pains, 
Nussed by stern men with empires in their brains." 

At the time our county was organized, there was not a newspaper on 
this continent; now we claim fifteen, and in the United States there are 
more than six thousand. In the entire world there were not so many as 
are now published on Long Island alone. Our first newspaper was pub- 
lished at Sag Harbor in 1791. 

Public libraries seemed then as far removed as the stars; now w^e can 
boast of one in every school district, with extra ones of thousands of vol- 



LITERARY CULTURE. 8 1 

umes in Greenport, Bridge-Hampton, Patchogue and Huntington. The 
private collections in the homes ot our count}' are extensive in numbers and 
of rare value; and I doubt if it would be extravagant to say that our people 
have at least one million dollars invested in books, comprising more than 
three hundred thousand volumes. 

We have now 142 public schools with 223 trained teachers; our 
school property is valued at $240,000; and the public money allotted to 
our schools, this year, was $32,386.95. 

These figures, like Gadgrind's facts, cannot lie; and they tell of ad- 
vancement in the cultivation of mind which exceeds the wildest dreams of 
the patriarchs of our county who saw in Harvard the only college which 
this continent could boast. 

This is the culmination of the good work commenced long ago and 
continued unremittingly. Indeed, we had so far progressed in 1840, that 
N. S. Prime, the historian, said there were then but fourteen individuals in 
Suffolk County who could not read and write. According to the average 
of white people in the balance of the United States, we should have had 
more than 1,250. And this reminds me of the envy of our sister county 
which was displayed by one of its magnates, afterwards Governor of the 
State, in announcing with ja*/,^ /rwi/, that he "contemplated a missionary 
expedition into the dark and benighted regions of Suftblk." And the 
speaker deemed himself a King in his own right. 

The great landmark in the Educational history of our County was the 
establishment of a Teachers' Association, through which those who con- 
trolled our common schools might meet for counsel, advice and guidance. 
Thought had been awakened concerning the great problems entrusted to 
our educators and the importance of unity in action realized. In 1852, 
Hon. James H. Tuthill, now our Surrogate, was the President of the 
County Association. He brought to his high office, ripe scholarship, rare 
culture, and practical experience in the school room. He appreciated the 
high calling of those who moulded mind, and strove to make them magnif\- 
their offices. He valued the teacher's occupation as one of the most exalted 
known to man — vivifying and self-sustaining in its nature, to struggle with 
ignorance, and discover to the inquiring minds of the masses the clear 
cerulean blue of heavenly truth. To him this vocation was the most widely- 
extended survey of the actual advancement of the human race in general, 
and the steadfast promotion of that advancement. He respected men and 
women fitted for their chosen task as instructors, and bestowed but little 
sympathy upon the educational shams who made their schools simply 
stepping stones to other callings or the advertising mediums of advantage- 
ous marriages. He wished teachers who were worthy and well-qualified, 
w-ho loved their profession, and had scholarship equal to the demands of 
the age. Like Virgil, he loved not those superficial scholars who 

"Lightly skim. 
And gentlv sip the dimply river's brim. " 
With Horace Mann he believed that the education already given to the 
people created the necessity of giving them more. What has been done 
has awakened new and unparalleled energies; and the mental and moral forces 
which have been roused into activity, are now to be regulated. These 
forces^are not mechanical, which expend their activity and subside to rest: 
they are spiritual forces, endued with an inextinguishable principle of life 



g2 LfTERARY CULTURK. 

and progression. The coiled sprino^ of the machine loses power as it 
unwinds; but the living soul of man, once conscious of its power, cannot 
be quelled: it multiplies its energy, and accelerates its speed, in an upward 
or downward direction, forever. For our teachers to form a County 
Association under the leadership of a President imbued with such ideas, 
was to ensure the success which soon made them the recognized leaders in 
public schools throughout the state. Doubdess much also was due to the 
earnestness and wise co-operation of the School Commissioners of our 
county. One of them (the Chairman of this Meeting) made himself con- 
spicuous for his zeal, his wide knowledge of the requirements of the schools 
under his immediate supervision, and his devotion to the most advanced 
methods of education. I remember well his sympathy with the teachers, 
his magnetism in the school room, his sunshine which made teachers and 
pupils alike rejoice whenever he visited their schools. Aiding and strength- 
ening the County Association, insisting upon a high standard of scholar- 
ship, bringing the brightest minds in contact with each other in discussing 
the perplexing questions of the school-room, he did a work for our schools 
\\^hich will keep his memory green forever. Alter a few years of such 
guidance, we could boast of better schools an'd better teachers in Suffolk 
County, than in any other County of the State. Our educational torch- 
bearers did not hide their light, and scores of them became missionaries in 
school work in other fields where the educational wants were greater and 
their folden calls more winning. Cruikshank, Higgins, Merwin, Davis, 
Funnel, were our avant couriers; and through those we sent abroad, the 
citizens of Brooklyn and other cities of our state gained practical knowl- 
edge of our advancemerit in the best methods of .moulding immortal 
minds. How poor was the gift of Midas, fabled to possess the power of 
turning whatever he touched into gold, compared with the power of turning 
o-old into knowledge, and wisdom and virtue ! And to-day, Suffolk 
remains a recognized leading County in educational matters. When any 
of our sister Counties desire a teacher of marked superiority, attention is 
given to our County and its school exemplars. We have yielded many of 
our brightest and best, and still we point with pride to the little army that 
remains, each fitted to command, all worthy to be termed teachers in fact 
as well as in name. With Principals Hall, Gordon, Shaw, Hallock and 
their compeers, Suffolk may well feel proud of her educators. And I must 
not forget that in Prof Stackpole, who has but so recently surrendered his 
throne in your village, our County possessed a teacher equal to any who 
ever held the master's sway in any school of our State; and hundreds of 
his pupils will rise up to call him blessed. 

If we look at the subjects taught in our common schools; the facilities 
for illustration; the mechanical conveniences; the improvement in every 
external aid, including admirably lighted, well ventilated and cozily con- 
structed school-houses, and contrast them with the inconveniences to which 
our ancestors were subjected, we need no longer wonder at the marvelous 
advancement of our children compared with die children of a century ago. 
Especially is this mere common-place to us, when we see that now the 
teachers' office is not so much to impart knowledge as to show his pupils 
how to get it; to give strong impulses to their minds and lead them, in 
conscious self-reliance, to put forth their utmost enersjies. To thus inspire 
them with a love of study and delight in mastering difficulties, till they feel 
all the incitements of victory and are encouraged to go on from conquest 



LITERARY CULTURE. 83 

to conquest. Many subjects which were matters of speculation to our pro- 
genitors have become estabhshed truths under the guidance of the discov- 
ering minds of the nineteenth century; and it has been well said that our 
children ha\e more correct notions of nature and natural phenomena than 
had Plato. And this is but the legitimate outcome of our common schools 
— the peoples colleges — th? perfection of which is the grandest tribute to 
man's wise ambition. They are, indeed, the glory of our nation, and 
when they cease to be its glory, this nation will cease to be the glory of the 
world. 

To secure so g-and a result has cost not only infinite labor but vast 
treasures. The fathers recognized education as our only political safety; 
that outside of this ark all was deluge. That the people must spend 
money to educate their children, or they must pay taxes to build prisons to 
punish crime. That good government means the acts of wise and good 
men organized for the general good. That honesty and intelligence must 
go hand in hand. It is said that when President Lincoln was urged to 
appoint an ignorant ofiice-seeker becnuse he was "honest," remarked "I 
don't see any difference between an honest blank fool and any other blank 
fool," and he refused to make the appointment. It is sometimes suggested 
that if our intelligence were measured by our votes, we might not be 
pleased with the standard which justice would designate. Yet it is no less 
true, that suffrage should practically exemplify our knowledge and justify 
our claim to be the most enlightened people under heaven. 

And this reminds me that once many of the worthy followers of the 
Wesleys, thought to interpret the Bible demanded inspiration and no 
worldly knowledge. It is said that a local preacher, speaking in the pres- 
ence of Bishop Simpson, thanked God for his ignorance. To which the 
Bishop remarked, "you have a great deal to thank God for." Now in 
every hamlet, we find a church spire pointing to heaven; and in each temple 
of the Father there is a clergyman whose pure and holy life is adorned bv 
the learning of the schools and the culture which exemplifies the highest 
evidences of education. 

Turning from our schools to their graduates and to the people of our 
County, we find fitting illustrations of that progress which marks the English 
speaking race in its highest attainments. In Art, our country will not 
forget Suffolk's sons, William S. Mount and Shepard A. Mount — men of 
genius whose works made them known throughout the civilized world. 
In History, Wood, Prime and Thompson form a trio who will not be 
forgotten. In Poetry, Terry, Gardiner and Tooker, hold no mean place; 
and in Journalism, the editors of the county are the peers of their brethren 
throughout the State. In the Law, Buftett, Strong, Wickham, Sanford, 
stand like stars in the night — the lesson of their lives being their best 
monuments. In forensic oratory, Judge Rose is remembered with pride 
while recalling the Hoffmans, Emmetts, Grahams, VanBu'en, Jordan, and 
equal celebrities, who charmed jurors and delighted audiences in other 
parts of the State — our Orator not suffering by the comparison. In our 
churches, the eminent divines are legion. 

With this passing glance at the select few, let us remember the thous- 
ands who are the sons and daughters of Suffolk. It will be conceded that 
we are a prosperous people, and Macauley has well said that the progress 
of elegant lit'^nture and th'^ fin? arts is proportionate to that of the public 
prosperity. We cannot be intelligent, happy or useful, if we lack the 



§4 LITERARY CULTURE. 

culture and discipline of education. It is this that unlocks the prison-house 
of the mind and releases the captive. Carlyle calls literature "the thought 
of thinking souls". It is that part of thought that is wrought out in the 
name of the beautiful. A poem like that of Homer, or an essay upon 
Milton, or Dante, or Caesar from a Macauley, a Taine, or a Froude, is 
created in the name of beauty, and is a fragment in literature, just as a 
Corinthian capital is a fragment of art. When truth, in its outward flow, 
•joins beauty, the two rivers make a new flood called "letters"'. It is an 
Amazon of broad bosom resembling the sea. The advantage in literature, 
as in life, is of keeping the best society, reading the best books, and wisely 
admiring the best things. 

In the words of De Quincey, There is flrst the literature of knowledge; 
and secondly the literature of power. The function -of the first is to teach, 
of the second, to move ; the first is a rudder, the second an oar or sail. 
The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks 
ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but 
always through aff"ections of pleasure and sympathy. If we consider how 
much literature enlarges the mind, and how much it multiplies, adjusts, 
rectifies and arranges the ideas, it may well be reckoned equivalent to an 
additional sense; it aff'ords pleasure which wealth cannot procure, and 
which poverty cannot entirely take away. It is indeed the garden of wis- 
dom; and if we wish to gather its choicest flowers, we must enter its divine 
precincts through the. gate of learning. Nevertheless it is so. common a, 
luxury that the age has grown fastidious. The moralist is expected to 
allure men to virtue by his beautiful rhetoric; philosophy must be illus- 
trated by charming metaphors of captivating fiction; and history, casting 
aside the odious garb of formal narrative, is required to assume a scenic 
costume, and teem with the connected interest of a facinating tale. Edward 
Everett pronounced it the voice of the age and the state. The character, 
energy and resources of the country are reflected and imaged forth in the 
conception of its great minds: they are organs of the time; they speak their 
own though s; but under an impulse like the prophetic enthusiasm of old, 
they must feel and utter the sentiments which society inspires. There is no 
reason why the brown hand of labor should not hold Bryant or Longfel- 
low as well as the plow. Ornamental reading shelters and even 
streno-thens the growth of what is merely useful. A cornfield never returns 
a poorer crop because a few wild-flowers bloom in the hedge-row. The 
refinement of the poor is the triumph of Christian civilization. In our 
County, we have few who are immensely rich in land or gold. But we 
have not a dozen families so poor that they have no books, nor so ignorant 
that they cannot profit by them. And the character of the books read by 
our people shows their literary culture in a practical manner. As we deter- 
mine a man's condition by the company he keeps, so we judge the culture 
of our people by the authors they study. In almost every house, a selection 
of the classics may be found. Works in science, literature and art; 
philosophy, history, poetry; the leading writers of Europe; and those of 
our real sovereigns, Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, Emerson, Channing, 
Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, Jeff'erson; Cooper, Irving, Hawthorne, 
Mitchell, Aldrich, Howells, James, Curtis; Doane, Simpson, Durbin, 
Bascom, King, Chapin; Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, 
Saxe— these and the ofierings of scores of others, are as familiar to our 
people as the surgings of the mighty ocean that kisses our shores. And 



LITERARY CULTURfi. 85 

while the cheapness ofbooks have added largely to their ownership, to the 
credit of our people's morals, to their refined taste and literary culture, we 
find but few copies of questionable books in . any part of our County. 
French Novels and Poetry of the Byron and Swineburne schools are as 
eifectually banished as if they were rire-brands arrows and death to all we 
hold dear. Dime-novels and demoralizing journals find few patrons in our 
County, and the best Reviews, the choicest Magazines, the most scholarly 
edited journals, are as plentiful as leaves in Valambrosa. Our people 
aim to enrich themselves with the spoils of all pure literature, knowing that 
he who would make a favorite of a bad book, simply because it contams a 
tew beautiful passages, might as well caress the hand of an assassin because 
of the jewelry which sparkles on his fingers. Our people generally can 
earnestly respond to the apostrophe of Doctor Channmg: No matter how 
poor, I am; no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not 
enter my obscure dwelling; if the sacred writers will enter and take up 
their abode under my roof; if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me 
of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and 
the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his 
practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, 
and 1 may become a cultivated man though excluded from what is called 
the best society in the place where I live. 

Having organized our County politically and developed in a marvel- 
ous degree its material resources, we should make longer strides toward 
literary culture and eminence. We must not ignore the progress already 
made, nor fail to profit by it. The most celebrated historical models of 
antiquity have been surpassed; Gibbon, Grote and Macauley, are decidedly 
superior in general merit to Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus; and, 
besides, our historians have opened up a wider field of study, and have 
found new methods of ascertaining the truth. Historical criticism has 
taught us how to separate the mystical from the historical in ancient story, 
and linguistic ethnology and archaeological and philological research have 
opened up vast realms of knowledge. We have learned to distinguish be- 
tween the history of our race and that of a few individuals who happened to 
hold olhce, and our historical composition is changing from a personal to 
a philosophical character. Let us with the new light beaming upon us add 
largely to that culture which has given us so prominent a place in the historv 
of counties throughout the State. And to make my leaden discourse not 
worthless by reason of the gold wedded to it, I cannot better conclude my 
rambling remarks than by giving you a few pearls from the matchless 
casket of Emerson. Culture is the suggestion fi-om certain best thoughts, 
that a man has a range of afiinities, through which he can modulate the 
violence of any master-tone that have a droning preponderance in his 
scale, and succor him against himself Culture redresses his balance, puts 
him among his equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympa- 
thy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion. Books, as 
containing the finest records of human wit, must always enter into our 
notions of culture. The best heads that ever existed, Pericles, Plato, 
Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Goethe, Milton, were well-read, universally 
educated men, and quite too wise to undervalue letters. Their opinion 
has weight, because they had means of knowing the opposite opinion. We 
look that a great man should be a good reader, or, in proportion to the 
spontaneous power should be the assimilating power. Good criticism is 



86 lite!rary cVlture. . 

very rare and always precious. I am always happy to meet persons who 
perceive the transcendent superiority of Shakespeare over all other writers. 
I like people m ho like Plato. Because this love does not consist with self- 
conceit. 

Let me say here, that culture cannot begin too early. In talking with 
scholars, I observe that they lost on ruder companions those years of boy- 
hood which alone could give imaginative literature a religious and infinite 
quality in their esteem. 1 find, too, that the chance for appreciation is 
much increased by being the son of an appreciator, and that these boys 
who now grow up are caught not only years too late, but two or three birlh:^; 
too late, to make the best scholars of And I think it a presumable mo- 
tive to a scholar, that, as, in an old community, a well-born proprietor .is 
usually found, after the first heats of youth, to be a careful husband, and to 
feel a habitual desire that the estate shall suff'er no harm by his administra- 
tion, but shall be delivered down to the next heir in as good condition as 
he received it; — so, a considerate man will reckon himself a subject of that 
secular melioration by which mankind is mollified, cured, and refined, 
and will shun every expenditure of his forces on pleasure or gain, which 
will jeopardize this social and secular accumulation. 

The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudin^.cnt:.! forms, and 
rose to the more complex, as fast as the earth was fit for t .eir dwelling 
place; and that the lower perish, as the higher appear. \'ery few of our 
race can be said to be, yet finished men. We still carr} sticking to us, 
some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization. We call 
these millions men; but they are not yet men. Half engaged in the soil. 
pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disen- 
gage him. If Love, red Love, with tears and joy; it Want with his scourge; 
if War with his cannonade; if Christianity with its charity; if Trade with its 
money; if Art with its portfolios; if Science with her telegraphs through the 
deeps of space and time; can set his dull nerves throbbing, and by loud 
taps on the tough chrysalis, can break its walls, and let the new creature 
emerge erect and free, — make way, and sing paean ! The age of the quad- 
ruped is to get out,— the age of the brain and the heart is to come in. 

The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more 
be organized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all the material. 
He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power. 
The formidable mischief will only make the more useful slave. And if 
one shall read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature 
to mount and meliorate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better, in 
the human being, we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not 
overcome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the chaos and 
gehenna. He will convert the Furies into Muses, and the hells into 
benefit. 



[It is but proper to state that Ex-Judge Reid's address was made ex- 
tempore, after ten o'clock at night, and with great rapidit}^ Having 
taken but few notes, the foregoing may be termed the intended rather than 
the real address — although it embodies most of the topics discussed by the 
speaker. — Ed. J 



lYacuation by the British. 



4ON. f^HARLES ^. g)TREET. 



BY a remarkable coincidence the two hundreth year since the formation 
of Suffolk County happens to be the one hundreth year since the 
triumph of the American Colonies over British oppression and the 
departure ot the British troops from Suffolk County. I am assigned to 
speak to you concerning the memorable events which cluster around this, 
as it were, "halfway house" in the history of our country; events which 
always stand out in bold relief and the memory of which always stir the 
hearts of all patriotic citizens with the deepest emotion. The lew minutes 
only given me in which to deal with this topic will only enable me to pre- 
sent a "bird's eye" view of the subject. 

You are all familiar with the story of the Old Revolution and how one 
hundred years ago, out of the terrible sufferings, the gloomy apprehensions 
and the desolation of seven years of war, the patriots suddenly emerged 
victorious: How Suffolk County, desecrated with the tramp of invadinti: 
armies and environed with hostile fleets, was in 1783, one hundred years 
ago, liberated, and freedom and independence established. 

Some of you who are about my age will remember how in our youth 
the gray haired men of the Revolution were seen on the platforms at all 
Fourth of July Celebrations, and how we then listened to the story of the 
war as it fell from the lips of our grandfathers and grandmothers. Now 
they have gone to their graves and our children only read in books a his- 
tory of these events. The old time hon<^red custom of celebrating Inde- 
pendence Day by popular assemblages of the people, by music and oratory 
has largely fallen into disuse, but we may well, at least in this centennary 
of the triumph of our forefathers, honor them and their cause with a few 
moments of our thought. And what was the oppression from which the 
people of Suffolk County were then liberated.'' antl in what way did the 
relief come ? 

My friends, go back with me in imagination, just a moment, to the 
period of the outbreak of the Revolution. Suffolk County then occupied 
a strong and prominent position in the Colony of New York. In numbers, 
wealth, resources, the physical and intellectual power of its people, and in 
political influence, it stood in the front rank. For more than a hundred 
years these people, and their ancestors through many generations, had been 
building for themselves homes in this land and had incessantly struggled 



a» EVACUATION BY THE BRITISH, 

for liberty and equal rights against arbitrary power. Look at the situation. 
Suffolk County had its ablest men as delegates in the Continental Congress 
at Philadelphia — the declaration of Independence, announcing the separa- 
tion of the Colonies from Great Britain and the fundamental principles of 
liberty, had been proclaimed by that Congress. All but about five hundred 
of the three thousand male inhabitants capable of bearing arms in this 
County were devoted to the Patriot cause. All over the land these men 
were organizing in military companies. In Southold, Southampton, East- 
Hampton, Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington, the old towns of that 
period, the militia were drilling and preparing for the struggle. Washing- 
ton, anxious to save Long Island from subjugation, had thrown such force 
as he could spare across the East River, under General Green, occupying 
fortifications on Brooklyn Heights. 

It was midsummer. The fields of golden grain waved in the sea 
breezes which fanned the Island. At all the farm-houses the impending 
invasion occupied the thoughts of all, and the hearts of all men and women 
throbbed with apprehension of the approach of startling events, when sud- 
denly there came horsemen riding swift as the wind' into all the villages who 
announced in breathless tones that Lord Howe had arrived in New York 
harbor with an immense fleet of war ships and transports and thirty thousand 
soldiers threatening a landing on Long Island, and threatening to sweep it 
with fire and sword. 

The militia of ■ Suffolk ' County, though weak in numbers, de' 
termined to make a bold stand. The work of drilling and organizing for 
resista:nce was pushed with renewed vigor. Col. Josiah Smith, then at 
Southampton, was, on the loth of August summoned by the Continental 
Congress to take command of the Suffolk County militia and hasten to 
Brooklyn in aid of General Green. In about four days he had gathered a 
men of about four hundred men — the towns in the County each contrib- 
uting about their proportion of this force. General Woodhull, of lamented 
memory, a son of Suffolk County, was also ordered to the front with the 
force at his command. In all the homes of the Patriots, intense excitement 
and hopeful courage prevailed. The question was which of the sons 
should go to the war; and who can describe the emotion written in the 
faces, and the tender words of parting which fell from the lips of the 
mothers of that day as their sons hastily gathered their arms and left their 
homes, many to be absent in the Continental Armies for long years, and 
many never to return. 

But bitter humiliation and defeat, for a time, awaited the patriot cause. 
The story of their subjugation is short. The Battle of Long Island was 
fought at Brooklyn, August 27th, 1776, and lost. Long Island lay prostrate 
at the feet of a conquering army. 

The military plans of General Washington for the defense of New 
York and Long Island have met with adverse criticism, as do all plans that 
fail, and the movements of the two armies at the battle of Long Island, 
in which the British had about 15,000 soldiers partially engaged and the 
patriots about an equal number, are involved in considerable obscurity, but 
there is evidence enough to show that the Suffolk County Militia were in 
the thickest of the fight for two d:\ys — that they stood in the trenches two 
nights in the face of the enemy — that they suff'ered excessive loss owing to 
their isolated position and want of support, and that they bravely main- 



EVACU.VriON BY THE BRITISH. 89 

tained their position until withdrawn from the field by order of General 
Putnam in the retreat to Westchester County. 

The news of the disaster flew fist through all the villages and hamlets, 
carrying terror and dismay to a people cut off from communication with 
the rebel army and too weak to resist the overwhelming force of t^e in- 
vaders: and to add to the alarm British ships were landing troops near 
Wading River who were pillaging the country. Five days from this, British 
infantry and cavalry entered Huntington village, tore out the seats in the 
Presbvterian Church and converted it into a stable for their horses. Proc- 
lamations went forth from General Erskine commanding obedience and 
submission by Suffolk. County and that the people take the oath of alle- 
giance to the King. 

At first these demands were met with stern refusal. The people had 
not yet tasted fully of the bitter cup of humiliation in store for them. 
General Tryon with an army of looo men swept Long Island from end to 
end of its horses, cattle, grain and stores for food for the British Army. 
General Clinton was at Southampton with 2, 500 soldiers and dragoons 
and twenty-five British war vessels lay in Sag Harbor. Everywhere violence 
and pillage accompanied the march of the British soldiery. With a long 
extent of vulnerable sea coast, its best commanders and soldiers in the 
Continental armies, destitute of necessar\' cannon, ammunition and the ap- 
pliances of war, and their communications cut oft" from Washington's 
army, the people of Suftolk County were compelled to submit. At the 
point of the bayonet or under threats of confiscation or banishment of 
themselves and families, hundreds signed the o.ith of allegiance to the 
King. They took the oath as an outward form but inwardly revolted 
against it. They yielded to the King a lip service extorted by force too 
great to be overcome, but mentally abhorred the act, and all their sympathies 
were with the patriots who were fighting with Washington. There were 
those however who refused to tike the oath of allegiance to the King, and 
we cannot help admiring that band of patriots whose spirit could not be 
broken, and who at the approach of winter abandoned their homes and 
farms, gathered wife and children, and fled to within the lines of the Con- 
tinental armv. They were worthy descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers 
whose invlomit.ible souls and iron nerves never knew defeat. 

We read in history the events of the long years of war, oppression, 
destitution and vassalage which followed. Time does not permit me here 
to describe them. Let us change the scene seven years later on. Imagine 
yourselves on the threshold of 1783, the year of which this is the centen- 
nial. It is winter. British soldiers swarm in all the large villages of 
Suffolk County. The invader is the master — the native of the soil is the 
servant, driven to menial service as hewers of wood and drawers of water 
for an arrogant soldiery. Forts and barrfcades bristling with guns frown 
upon the disarmed and impoverished people. Troops of dragoons with 
gaily caparisoned horses prance along all the great highways. Trains of 
military wagons are conveying the scanty food of the people to the camp 
of the enemy. The churches and places for worship of Almighty God are 
turned into stables or barracks for a ribald, blasphemous soldiery, and 
their ministers driven into exile or in prison under the brutal Provost 
ilNIarshal Cunningham. From Fort Golgotha in Huntington, there comes 
the sound of revelry and music, as gay dragoons move in the dance over a 
floor made of the tombstones of the, torn up dead from the grave- 



90 



EVACUATION BY THE BRITISlt. 



yard on which the fort is buih. 

But the avenging angel had not been idle. Justice, though 
to mortal conception sometimes tardy, moves with unfaltering tread 
and reaches the goal at the appointed hour. There comes swift 
ridingf couriers now, from the camp of the victorious army of the patriots. 
With trumpet sounding over all the hills and valleys, the glad words are 
heard "Peace has come ! The armies of Washington are triumphant ! — 
Glory to God in the highest !" If we could call from the tomb these pa- 
triots of old and they could stand in our midst to-night, with what 
unspeakable joy they would join in this celebration. If their souls hover 
over us in the shadowy unseen world, may they not look wiih gratitude 
and loving approbation upon their children who here commemorate the 
hundreth year of their glorious victory. 

Since these events we have had a war for the preservation of the Union 
which called forth greater armies and was waged on a vaster field; and 
though the battles of the old Revolution may be dwarfed in comparison 
with the gigantic military operations on land and sea which larger numbers 
and advanced military science has made possible, yet the value ot the 
principles which the Revolutionary Fathers' contended for, remains undim- 
inished, and the justice of their cause, the purity of their purposes, their 
unfaltering courage and patriotism, continue, as they ever have, to challenge 
the admiration of mankind. 




|fft%! 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX A. 



Washington, D. C, Oct. ii, 1883. 
Hon. He.vryA. Reeves, Greenport, L. I., N. Y. : My Dear Sir. — 
Your letter of the 8th inst, requesting statistical information in regard to 
the commerce, navigation and fisheries of Long Island, is received. I must 
sympathize with you, and am very sorry that I cannot felicitate you upon 
the task assigned to you, viz: that of preparing a paper upon the Com- 
merce, Navigation and Fisheries of Suffolk County, to be read on the oc- 
casion of the County's bi-centennial celebration. Long Island probably con- 
sumes fully her share, if not more than her share, in proportion to popula- 
tion, of foreign goods imported; but they are all imported 
at New York, and appear as the imports at that city 
with imports for consumption in all parts of the United States; for 
with respect to foreign commerce. New York represents the whole 
country. It would be utterly impossible to find out the value of foreign 
goods consumed in Suffolk County, unless you were to inquire of every 
village merchant as to the amount of foreign goods which he had bought 
and sold during the year, and, besides that, propound the same question 
to every lady in the county who has gone down to New York in the morn- 
ing and done her shopping during the day. That, you see, would involve 
something in the nature of a census work quite unique as a governmental 
operation. Besides, .it would be entirely too inquisitorial, I fear, for the 
average Long Islander. 

In the second place, there is probably a very small part of the products 
of Suffolk County exported to foreign Countries, but she performs indirect- 
ly a very important service in feeding the population of New York City which 
is so extensively engaged in this great foreign commerce of the country, as 
well as in its much more important domestic commerce and industries. 
You and I know that Long Island is the garden spot of this Country, if not 
of the world, and we also know very well that Suffolk County is the most 
beautiful and best part of Long Island.. We also know the important ser- 
vice which Long Island renders in sustaining the vital forces of New York 
City, the commercial centre of this country, from the time of the first ap- 
pearance of water cresses and early spring greens, until the last harvest home 
of the Autumn crops. 

Next, I will touch upon navigation. It so happens that under our 
Jaws both the northern shore and the southern shore of Long Island are 



^4 



APPENDIX. 



embraced in the customs district of New York City. The onlj district 
which at all lepresents Suffolk County is the customs district of Sag Har- 
bor, embracing the waters between Oyster Pond Point and Montauk Point. 
I will have the tonnage of that district made up for the last five years and 
also the amount of tonnage belonging to that district for the decennial 
vears back as far as 1830. The only customs officer on the north side of 
Long Island is located at Port Jefferson. He is a Surveyor and reports to 
the Collector of Customs at New York. I will send you a table extending 
as far back as possible, of vessels built at Port Jefferson and the tonnage 
owned there; also the same as to Patchogue. Some time ago I tried 
to formulate some commercial statements in regard to Long Island and re- 
gretted very much that there was not a Chief of Bureau of Statistics of Suf- 
folk County, clothed with ample powers to collect information. 

The most valuable commercial expression which you could get would 
I think, be a statement of tonnage and of passengers carried by the Long 
Island Railroad to and from Suffolk County; but there again jou would 
meet a difficulty, for the Long Island Railroad Company does not separate 
its traffic by counties. I think, however, that they may be able to give you 
something which would show the growth and present magnitude of the 
traffic east of Farmingdale. I would advise you to apply to the secretary 
of the Company for such data. The railroad is now the principal highway 
of the commerce of Suffolk County and railroad cars are the vessels in 
v/hich she carries on trade with the outside world. As we know, there are 
many sloops and schooners trading between New York and points along 
the entire shores of the County, and a few steamer lines, but their opera- 
tions, I fancy, embrace only a comparatively small part of the commerce of 
the County— what part it is impossible to tell. The collection of such in- 
formation in full as to Suffolk County, would not only be a serious incon- 
venience, but I fear be an insufferable perplexity to the people of this 
county. As neither the National Government, nor the State, nor the 
Countv itself, raises any revenue from internal commerce, there is no suf- 
ficient reason why the people of the'County should be required to report all 
their commercial transactions. 

In regard to the Fisheries of Long Island, the difficulties in procuring 
exact data are even greater than those with respect to commerce and navi- 
gation. Many years ago Long Island was, to some extent, engaged in the 
whale fisheries. I am having prepared for you a statement upon this sub- 
ject which you will find enclosed herewith. During the last century, and 
first part of this century, those monsters of the deep were so accommodating 
as to present themselves as living sacrifices to the temporal interests of the 
people residi..g at the east end of Suffolk. All those people had to do was 
to go out from the shore in whale boats and capture the welcome visitors. 
But that has long .-;ince ceased, and the vessels engaged in whale fisheries 
have also disappeared. 

I also enclose herewith astatementshowing the value of the products of 
American Fisheries of all kinds brought into the United States at the Customs 
District of Sjg Harbor. This embraces only small fisheries, but Long 
Island has to-day fishing interests exceeding in value those hereinbefore 
mentioned. I refer to the fisheries of the Great South Bay, and all along 
the eastern and northern shores. But the value of these fisheries cannot be 
esdmated upon any trade standard such as obtains in Fulton Market The 
chief value of the ie fisheries is in the liae of sport «d of recreation from 



wAPPENDIX. 95 

business cares in the great city. If you should undertake to ascertain the 
value of these fisheries you would have upon your hands a most perplexing 
work. You would have to hunt up every man who has enjoyed the exhil- 
arating sport of trolling for blue fish. But then not one of them would be 
able to tell you what he estimated to be the value of his day's catch; for in 
catching fish, he also caught hea'th and recreiiion and joy. Besides fish 
so caught are not usually sold. 

I remember a notab'eclay's fishing on the Great South Bay many years 
ago which has an ever increasing value in its pleasant recollections. 

Then again you have all amund Long Island, trout ponds and trout 
streams, almost all of which are uow pr.vaLe preserves. Who can estimate 
the money value of these fisheries .^ For example: Suppose you should 
apply to my friend, the Hon. Henry J. Scudder, of Northport, for the 
annual value of the catch on his trout pond, which is not only a source of 
pleasure to himself and his family, but adds a charm to the landscape 
wh'ch takes in his beautiful home. To estimate the value of the fish taken 
on that pond during a season upon the basis of value per pound in Fulton 
Market, would, I think, be very disgusting to Mr. Scudder. 

Then, again, you have your oystering interest, for the enterprising 
citizens of Suffolk County have gone out upon the bays and harbors in 
front of their properties along the water line, and through a recognized 
principle of squatter sovereignty have acquired exceedingly valuable ri- 
parian rights. Ichlhyologically the oyster is not a fish; but, commercially, 
oystering and the fisheries are commonly embraced in the same category. 
It would be about as difficult, I think, for you to ascertain the value of 
oysters, clams and escallops, taken annually in the waters of Suff"olk 
County, as it would be (or you to ascertain the value of the imported goods 
consumed by the people of that county. 

I enclose a statement in regard to the population of Suffolk County 
according to the censuses, running back as far as possible, also acreage in 
farms, value of lands in farms, and value of manufactures. Some time ago 
I wrote an article for the North American Rnnew, a copy of whicti I send to 
you. In this, you will find some allusion to Long Island which may 
interest you. 

If you should fail to meet the expectations of your audience you -will 
certainly be entitled to plead in defence the fact that you were asked to do 
the impossible thing, and you may, if you choose, summon me as witness 
in your defense. 

Regretting my inability to serve you better, — I am. Sir, very respect- 
fully yours, JOSEPH NIMMO, Jr., 

Chief of Bureau, 



96 



APPENDIX. 



Statement of the tonnage belonging to and built in the customs district of 
Sag Harbor, New York, during the years named. 



YEARS. 


TONNAGE BELONGING TO THE DISTRICT. 


TONNAGE 




Sail. 


Steam. 


Total. 




1830 
1840 
1850 
i860 
1870 
1880 
1882 


Tons 
* 6,390 
20,406 
14, III 
18,498 
7,960 

H,939 
14,027 


Tons. 

121 

5,223 

208 

i>955 

2,547 


Tons. 

6,390 
20,406 
14,232 
23-, 72 1 

8,168 
16,894 
16,574 


Tons. 
Not stated 

207 

532 . 
419 

472 

755 
704 



Treasury Department, Bureau of Statistics, Oct. 11, 1883. 

Joseph Nimmo, Jr., 

Chief of Bureau. 
*0f this tonnage, 3,072 tons was employed in the whale fishery, and 859 
tons in other fisheries. 



Statement showing the amount of tonnage belonging to the customs dis- 
trict of Sag Harbor, N. Y., which was engaged in the Whale and 
Cod Fisheries during the years named. 



1830 
1840 
1850 
i860 
1870 
1880 
1882 




Treasury Department, Bureau of Statistics, Oct. 12, 1883. 

JOSEPH Nimmo, Jr., 

Chief of Bureau. 

The words "Cod Fisheries" as used above, for the years 1870, 1880, 
and 1882, doubtless includes all fisheries other than whale. 



97 



Population, value of" Farms and of Manufactures of the County of 

Suffolk, Long Island, N. Y. 

(From the United States Census.) 



YEARS. 


population. 


VALUE OF FARMS. 


VALUE OF MANUF's. 


SHI 








1790 


16,440 


no data 


no data 


1800 


19,735 


" " 


ti << 


1810 


21,113 


(( a 


i( (I 


1820 


23,930 


Cl (I 


" " 


1830 


26,780 


< I i< 


a < ( 


1840 


32,469 


a a 


ec << 


1850 


36,922 


7, 195,800 


182,140 


i860 


43>275 


12,641,940 


I, 114,111 


1870 


46,924 


16,324,870 


1,940,184 


1880 


53,888 


17,079,652 


2,176,613 



Statement showing the Total Value of the Products of American Fisheries 
brought into the United States, at the Customs District of Sag Harbor, 
N. Y., from the Fiscal Year 1872 to the Fiscal Year 1883 inclusive, 
as reported by the Collector of that District. 

Years. Dollars. 

1872 337,240 

1873 234,870 

1874 456,300 

1875 590,045 

1876 622,109 

1877 678,400 

1878 577,250 

1879 712,274 

1880 678,450 

1881 726,890 

1882 1,450,850 

1883 758.250 



Total 7,822,928 

Treasury Department, Bureau of Statistics, Oct. 13, 1883. 

Joseph Nimmo, Jr., 

Chief of Bureau, 



98 APPENDIX. MENHADEN FISHERY. 



APPENDIX B. 



MENHADEN FISHERY. 



It has been deemed useful to give in an appendix some data respecting 
this fishery which could not be embodied in the paper itself without unduly 
extending its length; and I have accordingly sought to select out of the 
mass of material furnished me, such facts as seem to possess the most value 
or interest. 

The menhaden, a branch of the herring family, are a migratory surface 
fish, moving northward in early spring and southward in late fall, and col- 
lecting in immense bodies called by the fishermen "schools". Their food 
is xn insect too minute to be seen by the naked eye. They are found on 
the l-tlantic seaboard from the British Provinces to the Gulf of Mexico, but 
their favorite summer resting places seem to be within the belt along shore 
seaward 50 or 75 miles from the Capes of Virginia to Cape Cod. More 
than two-thirds of the annual catch in recent years is taken between Cape 
May and Narragansett Bay. Neither their spawning grounds nor their 
time of spawning are fully determined. Great differences of opinion pre- 
vail on these and other points touching the habits and movements of these 
fish. No sufficient study has yet been made by naturalists to warrant 
definite conclusions, and fishermen who within their range of experience 
have been careful observers during many years, confess that they cannot 
decide on some elementary questions. This lack of certainty as to the 
movements of menhaden may fairly be held to justify the claim that there 
should be no legislation affecting the business of taking and rendering them 
except in some few particulars of regulation which may be manifestly safe 
and proper, or may be acquiesced in by those engaged in the business. 
Proceeding from some mistaken ideas respecting an alleged effect of the 
catch of menhaden upon the supply of certain food fishes in the market, 
there have been various efforts to regulate or restrict by State or Federal 
legislation the taking of menhaden, but so far they have either proved 
abortive altogether, or, where enacted into laws, no appreciable benefit has 
resulted from their passage. The business needs little if any protection from 
law, and no other industry needs protection from it by law. That in 
nature and effect it is of a character to deserve the most liberal encourage- 
ment and support rather than repression, must be obvious from the con- 
sideration that it takes out of the sea a material otherwise waste and 
worthless and from it makes articles of prime importance to the uses of 
mankind, amounting in yearly values to millions of dollars, and in doing 
so it affords an honest livelihood to several thousands of worthy citizens. 
To illustrate the progress it has made within the past decade I collate in 
l^arallel columns the statistics as certified by the United States Menhaden 





i88i 


64 


Factories - - - - 97 


- 871 


Men at Factories - - 2,805 


- - 1.567 


Fishermen - , . 2,406 


283 


Sailing vessels - - - 286 


- 25 


Steamers (19 not in use) - 92 


2,372,837 


Oil (gallons) - - 1,266,549 


50.976 


Scrap* (tons) - - 33,619 


492,878,000 


Fish caught* - - 454,192,000 


$2,500,000 


Capital invested - - $4,750,000 



APPENDIX. MENHADEN FISHERY. 99 

Oil and Guano Association for the years 1874 (the first reported after its 
organization) and 1881: 

1874. 
Factories 
Men at Factories 
Fishermen - 
Sailing vessels 
Steamers 
Oil (gallons) - 
Scrap (tons) 
Fish Caught ' 
Capital invested - 

*Scrap in 1881 was all dried; in 1874 all crude or wet; when wet it 
weighs two-thirds more than when dry. 

*No fish were taken on the coast of Maii'e in 1881; all reported were 
caught between Cape Cod and the Capes of Virgin.... and were of unusu- 
ally poor quality. 

The above Association was organized a* the U. S. Hotel, N. Y. City, 
on Jan. 7, 1874, with the following officers: President, Luther Maddocks, 
Maine; Vice-Presidents, George F. Tuthill, Greenport, L. I., and R. L. 
Fowler, Guilford, Ct. ; Secretary and Treasurer, H. L. Dudley, New 
London, Ct. ; Executive Committee, L. Maddocks and H. F. Brighton, 
Maine, and David F. Vail, Riverhead, L. L Among its members were: 
Falcon Oil Works, Greenport; Wells & Co., do. (and South Bristol, Me.); 
T. F. Price, Greenport; Vail & Grifiing, Riverhead; W. H. H. Glover, 
Southold; B. C. Cartwright, Shelter Island; M. P. Green, Promised Land; 
J. Morrison Raynor, Greenport; Henry E. Wells, do. ; Wm. M. Tuthill & 
Sons, East Marion; A. R. Comstock, Sayville; J. S. Marcy, Riverhead; 
Benj. L. Potter (of East Marion,) Harvey's Wharf, Va. ; Belloste & Griffing, 
do., do. ; Excelsior Oil & Guano Co., O. H. Bishop, Greenport. T. F. 
Price was the Committee on Statistics for Long Island. Its annual state- 
ments show the number of factories, of men employed therein, of fishermen, 
of steam and sailing vessels employed, of gallons of oil and tons of scrap 
manufactured, of fish caught, quantities of oil and scrap on hand at date of 
report, average yield of oil, and capital invested. At the time of organiza- 
tion the statistics reported (for 1873) were: Factories,62; capital, $2,388,- 
000; fishermen employed. 1,197; men at factories, 1,109; sailing vessels, 
383; steamers. 20; fish caught, 287,275,000; gallons oil, 2,214,800; tons 
scrap (crude), 36,299. Inasmuch as a summary of these reports, not 
available elsewhere, may be of value for the light they shed on various 
important questions connected with the business, it is hereto annexed. 

1873 and 1874 — given in foregoing exhibit, 1875 — Factories, 60; 
men, 2,633; steamers, 39; sailing vessels, 304; fish, 563,327,000; gallons 
oil, 2,681,487; tons scrap (crude), 53,625; capital, $2,650,000. [At the 
meeting — Providence, April 5, 1876 — when these statistics were reported, 
Mr. L. C. d'Homergue addressed the Association on the advantages of 
drying the scrap so as to put it in condition for export.] 

1876 — Factories, 64; sailing vessels, 320; steamers, 46; men, 2,758; 
capital, $2,750,000; fish, 512,450,000; gallons oil, 2,992,000; tons scrap 
(crude), 51,245. [At the meetings of 1875 and 1876, papers were read by 
Sf Li Goodalej of SafcOj Me. , Upon the possibility 6f makihg' frem rti^- 



lOO APPENDIX. MENHADEN FISHERY. 

haden a food extract like the extract from beef, and, as declared by scien- 
tists, equal to it in nutritive qualities. ] 

1877 — Factories, 56; sailing vessels, 270; steamers, 63; men, 2,631; 
capital, $2,047,612; fish, 587,624,125; gallons oil, 2,426,589; tons scrap 
(crude), 55,444. [During the year 5,600 tons of dried scrap were 
reported. ] 

1878 — Factories, 56; sailing vessels, 279; steamers, 64; men, 3,337; 
capital, $2,350,000; fish, 767,779,250; gallons oil, 3,809,233; tons scrap 
(crude), 53,719 — dried, 19,377; cash value of oil and scrap at the factories, 
at average market prices for the year, $2,289,172. 

1879 — Factories, 60; sailing vessels, 204; steamers, 81; men, 2.296; 
capital, $2,502,500; fish, 637,063,750; gallons oil, 2,258,901; tons scrap 
(crude), 67,059 — dried, 29,563. 

1880 — Factories, 79; sailing vessels, 366; steamers, 82; men, 3,261; 
fish, 776,000,000; gallons oil, 2,035,000; tons scrap (crude), 44,995 — 
dried, 25,800. 

1881 — Factories, 97; sailling vessels, 286; steamers, 73 (19 not in 
use); men, 2,805; ^sh, 454,192,000; capital, $2,460,000; gallons oil, 
1,266,549; tons scrap (crude), 7,592 — dried, 25,027., 

1882 — Factories, 92; sailing vessels, 212; steamers, 83; men, 2,.3i3; 
fish, 346,638,555; gallons oil, 2,021,312; tons scrap (crude), 10^029 — 
dried, 17,452; capital $2,838,500. [Attacks having jjeen made, and others 
threatened, upon the safety and welfare of the business, the Association 
voted to defend its members in any part of the United States in the; legal, 
legitimate right of fishing along the seaboard.] 

1883 — Factories, 78; sailing vessels, 136; steamers, 69; men,-,.2,427; 
fish, 613,461,776; gallons oil, 1,166,320; tons scra;p (crude),. 20,920 — 
dried, 34,246; capital, $2,051,000; average yield of oil per 1,060 fish, 
1. 96-100. 

The reports for 1883 — the last year reported — show great quantities of 
fish mosdy very poor, a small yield of oil. High prices of scrap in 1882 
forced manufacturers of phosphate fertilizers to look up substitutes ^or 
scrap out of which to obtain ammonia, such as nitrate of soda, sulphate of 
ammonia, cotton seed, oil cake, tankage, meat scraps, etc. This fact, 
with the large production of scrap in 1883, so lowered prices and 'reduced 
demand that factory owners made comparatively little profit on the large 
supply of fish. . . 

i'884 — The statistics of the Association for this year had not, at time 
ot writing, been made up; but I have from a gentleman engaged in the 
business a careful and close approximation to the figures of catch of fish 
and make of oil and scrap at the twelve factories on Gardiner's and Pecon- 
ic Bays, which foots up the following aggregates: Fish caught,' 176,500,- 
000; gallons of oil, 883,000; tons of scrap (dried), 13,125. At low aver- 
age prices these products of the menhaden fishery on the two bays during 
the season of 1884 were worth close upon six hundred thousand doUais. 

And, as showing its local development, I condense from figures given 
me at different times by W. Z. King, Surveyor of Customs at, Greenport, 
the following abstract of reports made to his office for the district including 
the towns of Shelter Islaiid, Southold and . Riverhead in the year 1880. 
Number of meijhaden rendered at fe.ctories,. 202,000,000; value of pro- 
ducts, $627,450; numbers taken in district but rendered outside, 140,000^- 
COO. 



Ai?PEJfDlX. — MENHADEN FISHERY. lOl 

In that year the aggregate value of fishery products reported at his of- 
fice was $1,083,850. There were registered in his office that year 233 sail 
and 23 steam vessels, aggregating 15,192.72 tons. In 1879 '^he number of 
"fish taken in the Bays and rendered at factories reporting at his office w^as 
211,000,000; gallons of oil made, 1.013,300; tons scrap (dry), 22,100; 
estimated total catch in district, 400,000,000; estimated total value of pro- 
ducts of fisheries within the Bays, $975,000. In 1883 the number of fish 
rendered in factories reporting at his office was 178,050,000; gallons oil 
made, 369,900; tons dry scrap, 15.278. 

A brief statement of the practical operation of the fishery may not be 
out of place. The purse net or seine, now in use will average 1000 feet in 
length by 75 to 100 feet in depth; but steamers often take nets for deep and 
shallow water fishing — the former 140 or 150 feet in depth, the latter 70 or 
80 feet; those used in deep water are generally 180 fathoms, or 1,080 feet 
long, while in shoal water they are 130 fathoms, or 780 feet, in length. 
The former would require about 50 feet depth of water; the latter about 18 
feet. On the upper line or rope to which the net is fastened cork floats are 
strung at short distances apart, in order to keep the net floating in the de- 
sired position; the underline is weighted and fitted with rings for drawing, 
or, as it is technically called, "pursing"' the net together. Half of the net 
is placed in the end of each of two seine boats which, when a school offish 
has been descried by the lookout and the vessel has approached sufficient- 
ly near, are rowed in dift"erent directions to make a circuit of the water where 
the fish are known or supposed to be. The time occupied in going round a 
school is ordinarly 10 to 20 mmutes. When the ends have been brought 
together and the net has been "pursed" by hauling the lines, the upper 
ones over and the under ones below the fish, the upper lines are tied com- 
pactly together, leaving an opening fi-om which to bail the fish. The ves- 
sel comes close alongside, and, if a steamer, uses a scoop net swung on a 
crane and lifted by steam, to bail the fish from the net into her hold; the 
scoop holds 1,000 fish of standard measurement, which is 22 cubic inches, 
and repeated trials prove that this method of counting by scoop-luls will 
not vary materially, with fish of average size, from counting by hand. By 
the use of steam the fish may be bailed at the rate of a scoop-ful a minute, 
or 60,000. an hour. On sailing vessels the bailing has to be done by hand. 
Experience has determined the size of mesh most serviceable for catching 
menhaden of standard size, to be 21-2 inches, but sometimes nets are used 
of 2 1-4 or 2 5-8 inches. A full grown lish commonly weighs i to i 1-4 
pounds, but sometimes "fat fish" will range from i 1-3 to 2 pounds, and 
yet heavier specimens have been seen. The temperature of the water most 
congenial to menhaden is from 52 deg. to 58 deg. Fahrenheit. 

The first to enter upon the drying of scrap exclusively as a business 
was Mr.'L. C. d'Homergue, of Brooklyn, then of Greenport, who also was 
first to make shipments of the dried scrap to England and Germauy. He 
had a factory at Hay Beach, Shelter Island. Tiie results of his experi- 
ments and observations there made were embodied in a paper read before 
the Association in 1876, and set forth more in detail in a paper read before 
the American Institute on March 8, 1877. 

The following synopsis of facts reLiting to the menhaden oil and guano 
manufacture on Great South Bay is from a letter kindly sent me by Wilson 
J. Terry, of Sayville; Samuel W. Green, of Say ville, was the pioneer in the 
business. He built works at that place in 1861, at a cost of ^2,500. 



tpi AP^KNDIX. MENHADEN FISHERY. 

There were then no purse nets used on the bay, and he depended wholly 
on bay fishing with seines, which was then very good. War prices pre- 
vailed; crude scrap sold tor $20 per ton, and oil for 90 cents to $1.00 per 
gallon. Induced by these figures Green bought a purse net and engaged a 
captain from Jamesport too instruct the bay fishermen in its use. A few years 
later he sold out to his brothers and put up works on the South Beach; but 
the business becoming unprofitable he sold it to other parties; this factory 
is now owned and run by Smith & Yarrington, of Sayville. In 1863 Mr. 
Terry and others bought works at Cape May, New Jersey, and moved them 
to Cap Tree Island, near Fire Island Light; he directed this factory 'till 
1877, when he bought out the other owners and purchased of Wall's Sons (of 
Williamsburgh) their works at The Ranges, consolidating the two in one 
and still carrying on the business, which has paid him a moderate profit. 
Wall's Sons expended a large sum on their factory, vessels, nets, etc., and 
employed John M. Rogers, as Superintendent. After about 6 years trial 
they had sunk fully one hundred thousand dollars, and then sold the es- 
tablishment to Mr. i erry for less than 10 per cent, of its cost. Willett 
Green and others removed their works from Saville to the South Beach and 
the second year afterwards it was burned, causing them a heavy loss; it 
was not rebuilt. Edgar Gillette put up pot-works at Blue Point and run 
them lor a few years, but the business proved unprofitable and he gave it up. 
John S. Havens and others put up pot-works at Swan Creek, near Patch- 
gue, and ran them for some ten years; the Bay fishing fell oft' and they 
were too far from Fire Island Inlet to get fish by means of purse nets, so 
they closed up the business. In 1880 George Comstock erected works on 
the South Beach, where he and his brother are still engaged in the business. 
The three factories now running are: The South Bay Oil W^orks, W. J. 
Terry owner; the Smith & Yarnngton, and Comstock Brothers. For four 
years past none of these have paid much profit owing to scarcity of fish, 
while that year (1883) the fish were so small and poor that the three factor- 
ies closed up ocean fishing on Sept. 15. On the whole the menhaden fish- 
ery in the Great South Bay has not been a source of profit to factory owners 
but it has artorded a fair livelihood to the fishermen. 

To exhibit more clearly the actual extent ot the menhaden interest in 
Suff"olk County for the year 1883, the appended table has been prepared; 
it includes two factories, located on Barren Island, in Kings County, which 
were supplied with fish by Suff'olk County fishermen, and were owned 
or operated by Suffolk County men. To the total catch on 
Peconic and Gardiner's Bays should be added some four mdlion fish ren- 
dered at the pot-works of W. M. Tuthill & Sons, at Napeague, but the 
other figures of their operations have been mislaid and cannot be replaced. 



APPENDIA". MENHADEN 


FISHERY 








16^ 


Peconic and Gardiner 


's Bays. 








Fish Taken. 


Gallons 

Oil. 


T. scrap 
dried. 


^S2 




Capital. 


Sail 
Ves'ls 


Hawkins Brothers, 


7, ooo, ooo 


15,615 


500 


2 


50 


50,000 





H. E. Wells, - 


14,764,600 


43.315 


1, 100 


2 


85 


25,000 


2 


Falcon Oil Co., 


19,983,600 


40, 185 


1,524 


2 


67 


60, OOO 


I 


Excelsior Oil Co., 


9,619, 122 


26,000 


726 


2 


46 


35,000 





Sterling Oil Co., 


'14 500,000 


41,400 


1,070 


2 


60 


30,000 


2 


Ranger Oil Co., 


19,750,000 


52,500 


14,00 


3 


65 


75,000 


I 


B. C. Cartwright, 


12,000,000 


24.000 


93° 


2 


45 


40, 000 





Dixon Mf'g Co., - - 


10,000,000 


30,000 


756 


2 


58 


75,000 





Abbe 


18,500,000 


49,500 


1,350 


3 


75 


80,000 





Jonas Smith - -, 


13,000,000 


30,000 


1,000 


2 


70 


60,000 





E. Tuthill & Co., 


15,000,000 


35>ooo 


1, 150 


2 


70 


60,000 





Totals, 


153951 322 


387,515 


11,506 


24 


691 


580,000 


6 




Great South Ba' 


V. 






South Bay Oil Works, 


4,500,000 


4,000 


360 


-- 


38 


12,000 


4 


Comstock Brothers, 


5,000,000 


5,000 


460 


— 


48 


10,000 


4 


Smith & Yarrington, 


2,000,000 


3,800 


130 


- 


32 


7,000 


3 


Totals, 


11,500,000 


12,800 


950 




118 


29,000 


II 




Barre 


^ Island. 








Jones & Co. , 


22,000,000 


22,000 


1,900 


- 


85 


120,000 


6 


Hawkins Bros., 


27,000,000 


44,385 


2,200 


4 


50 


125,000 


- 


Totals 


• 49,000,000 


66,385 


4,100 


4 


135 


245,000 


6 


Aggregates 


214451 322 


466.700 


16,556 


28 


944 


854,000 


23 



APPENDIX C. 



INCIDENTS OF THE FISHERIES. 

Monroe Conkling, of Orient, keeper of Little Gull Island light prior 
to 1852, in connection with the Manwarings of Connecticut, used to take 
considerable numbers of lobsters in pots set near the reefs off that island, 
and smacks stopped there to receive the catch for market. His successors, 
Sineus Conkling, Wm. Booth, Wallace Reeve, and others, continued the 
business, which is still carried on to some extent. The late Capt. Henry 
B, Gardiner, of East Marion, for several years made a regular trade of 
taking lobsters in pots set in Gardiner'^ Bay, and carrying them to New 
Haven for sale. Lobsters are also taken in L. I. Sound, oft' Arshamom- 
oque. 

Fisher's Island from the earliest date has been noted as a fishing 



104 APPENDIX. INCIDENTS OF THE FISHERIES. 

Station. The Pequot Indians when in possession made it one of their 
chief resorts for fishing. Gov. Winthrop, )Rho had a grant of the island 
from Massachusetts, was confirmed in it by an act of the Connecticut Court 
in 1 04 1 "so tar as it hinder^ not the public good of the country, either tor 
lortifying lor defense, or s^jtting up a trade for fishing, or salt, or such 
Lke. ' Prom the "Ant.eniest ±5ooke" of New London records it appears 
thit in 1649 leave was granted to Mr. John Wmthrop to set up a were 
(weir or wear) and make use of the river at Poquonnuck "for to take fish.'" 
Tfiis is the earliest local mention 1 have seen of this contrivance for taking 
fish. 

The island itself, with a smaller one off Mystic and close under the 
Connecticut shore, was included in the Duke of York's patent of 1664 and 
has ever since been regarded as belonging to Suffolk County; but the small 
island off Mystic reverted to Connecticut on the adoption of the boundary 
hne between the two States. In i6b8 John Wmthrop, its owner, recog- 
nized the soverignty of New York by procuring from Gov. NichoUs a 
patent whiCh settled h.s title to the island, and it remained in his family 
until transferred to the late Robert Fox, of New London, to whose estate 
the greater part of it now belongs. Adrian Block, the Dutch navigator, 
who in 16 J4 was the first to explore Long Island Sound, when he sighted 
Montauk Point called it Fisher's Hook, but that term was not accepted by 
the English. 

It IS believed that Matthias Rowland, of Norwalk, Ct., formerly of 
Suffolk County, and Capt. Gould Hoyt, of Norwalk, were tlie first to open 
escalops for market purposes; this was about 28 years ago. Charles 
Fanning, late of New Suffolk, deceased, was the first one on Peconic Bay 
to engage in the busmess, which has since grown to very considerable 
proportions, giving employment, mostly in the winter months, to a fleet of 
40 to 50 vessels manned by over 200 men and boys. Some winters ago 
Capt. James M. Monsell, of Greenport, in a boat with two men and six 
dredges, from a bed of escalops at Promised Land, East-Hampton, took 
500 bushels in one day. 

In January, 1837, the Z. /. Slar printed an account of a summer 
ramble over Long Island, and in that part of it which treats of the country 
between Riverhead and Orient, particularly of the facilities for fishing, etc., 
speaks of an old gentleman telling the writer that when he was young a 
great seine was used to catch porpoises, out of which they made oil from 
the blubber and leather from the skins. In Transactions of the "Society 
" Instituted in the State of New York for the Promotion of Agriculture, 
"Arts and Manufactures, ' printed in 1794, is an article by Ezra L'Hom- 
medieu, of Southold, a Vice-President of the Society, entitled "The Man- 
"ner of taking Porpoises at the East End of Long Island." 

By the kindness of Hon. B. D. Sleight, I have examined an original 
■"indenture" dated March 26, 1744, which recites that Benjamin L'Hom- 
medieu, Jr., Benjamin Bailey, John Vail, Saml Landon, John Prince, 
Elijah Hutchinson and Isaac Hubbard, all of Southold, have joined them- 
selvts to be partners toi^ether in the trade or design of catching porpoises 
and other fish along the coast, shore or liarborsof Long Island, to continue 
six months Irom April 4th, the arrangement being that L'Hommedieu 
should furn.sh a boat, porpoise seine, and one other seine for other fish, 
with tackling, &.C., and two men, one experienced and skilled in the use 
thereof, while the others, either personally or by substitute, were to furnish 



APtENBIX. INCIDENTS OF THE FISHERIES. I05 

each a capable man and to pay each one-tenth cost of provisions — L'Hom- 
medieuto have five-elevenths of the profits and the others each one-eleventh. 
At Orient, June 5, 1833, a seine at one haul took 12,250 drum fi.h 
averaging ^^ pounds in weight; the total catch weighing 202 tons and 250 
pounds. 

Fifty years ago Trout fishing on Long Island had already become of 
recognized importance. The numerous swift streams of clear, old and 
pure water, Rowing from the higher level of the central region to the north 
and south shores — especially to the latter — make superior feeding and breed- 
ing haunts for the "speckled beauties,'" and it is held that the mingling of 
these fresh streams with the salt waters of the Bays serves to [ romote the 
growth and the delicacy of flavor for which the brook trout of Long Island 
have long been noted. However this may be, it is certain that Long Island 
trout have been and still are favorites in the city markets, commanding the 
highest prices. Within the past thirty to forty years private individuals 
and Clubs have bought up ponds and streams along the South Side, in the 
towns of Babylon, Islip, Brookhaven and Southampton, and have expen- 
ded lage sums in enlarging, cleaning and protecting the ponds and in 
arrangements for the propogation or protection of trout therein; and now 
comparauvely few public waters can be found in which the taking of 
natural trout yields any considerable return of either pleasure or profit. — 
To how great an extent this occupation of the trout ponds and streams of 
our county by individuals or corporations has gone I am unable to state 
with exactitude; but a careful estimate of the present cash value of the 
trout preserves in the county places it at about one million dollars. As 
long ago as 1837, in its issue of August 5, the Spin'/ of the Times had an 
account of a trip of several weeks on Long Island spent in making a tour 
of the trout ponds and streams, which were described at some length, the 
writer being strongly impressed by what he saw. He also referred to troll- 
ing for blue fish on the Great South Bay and to perch fishing in Lake Ron- 
konkoma, and specified among the fish then more commonly taken from 
the Bay — blue fish, black fish, weak fish, (chequet), porgies, sheepshead 
and striped bass. 

On September i6th, 1837, the schooner Oneco, Captain Rogers, from 
the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, arrived at Greenport with 25,500 cod- 
fish to Dr. E. D. Skinner. At that time the bounty on codfish was large 
enough to stimulate enterprises of this sort, and several were undertaken 
from Greenport and Sag Harbor. In 1807 there were brought to Sag Har- 
bor 6,600 quintals of codfish. 

Traping fish, or the use of various devices other than hooks or ordinary 
nets and seines, has been practiced from the earliest period, indeed, it may 
fairly be inferred that this mode of fishing was more general in the first 
than in the second century of the county's history, since in its earlier years 
the procuring or making of nets and seines was attended by greater relative 
expense and difficulty than it came to be when improved methods of manu- 
facturing twine, cordage and nets had cheapened their cost. 

By virtue of their ancient patents, confirmed by acts of the Legislature 
and upheld by judicial decisions, the towns of Brookhaven and Hunting- 
ton claim and exercise exclusive property rights in the Ian J under water of 
the bays, &c., within their jurisdiction. Much contention and some dis- 
turbance have arisen from conflicting views and claims growing out of this 
ownership by the towns, and out of their management, through Trustees, 



I06 APPENDIX. INCIDENTS OF THE FISHERIES. 

of the business of takini( oysters and clams, which, being bottom fish, are 
held to be proper subjects of local control, From the earliest dates, under 
these patents, more or less dispute has attended the management of the 
oyster and clam fisheries, and the controversy continues to this day. But 
while those engaged in the business differ widely on some points of regii a- 
tion and government, they agree in opposing outside interference and are 
tenacious upholders of the town's exclusive jursdiction. Though sonu- 
times grumbling at particular demands they have submitted to the trustee , 
authority and have resisted all attempts to bring on intervention by the 
State Legislature. For the sake of better enforcement of pr.)hibitioris on 
certain obnoxious methods or practices in the fishery, recoar.^e lias been 
had to the Board of Supervisors, who have power to impose larger pei.al- 
ties than the Trustees can do; but this is merely to supplement and reinfo \ e 
not to contravene or supplant the latter's authority. As early as 1771 ih; 
Trustees of Brookhaven ordered "that no oysters or clams '^hdl be takj.i 
"out of ye South Bay, opposite our town, within our patent, unless first 
"obtaining liberty of us, ye Trustees, or from our order, and whoever sh ill 
"go contrary to this act shall piy for every such ofTenci ye sum of Twen y 
"Shillings, to be recovered before any Justice of the Peice as any oth:r 
" debt." In 1788 the Trustees fixed the charge for each t )n of ovsters tak jn 
out of the bay, at i shilling 6 pence, and soon afterwards in the same year 
amended it by making the charge " 2 pence prr tub of oysters or clams." 



APPENDIX D. 



SHIP BUILDING AND TONNAGE. 



I have striven with much pertinacity and zeal to recover authen- 
tic data whicn might enable me to present a pretty comprehensive and 
complete view or the business of building vessels within the limits of our 
County; of the builders whose handiwork became a part of the glory of the 
American comercial marine; of the yards in which they worked; of the 
names and other particulars of the vessels they built, and of the skillful sea- 
men who manned and commanded them; and by the kind help of friends at 
some places I have succeeded in getdng tolerably full lists of name, rig and 
tonnage of vessels launched at those places; but there are others, some ot 
them in my immediate neighborhood, at which I have so far failed to get even 
approximately correct lists and have therefore felt obliged to omit all fu ther 
reference to them. I do not despair of eventually receiving facts enough 
to o-ive a fair idea of the busirv.ess at these places, but it is a slow p oces> 
and will take much time. It is not claimed that the lists herewith given 
are complete or are absolutely correct, but they are based on careful in- 
quiry and research by friends at the places named, and may be accepted as 
reUable in all essendal particulars. 



APPENDIX. - — SHIP BUILDING. 



107 



Patchogue. 



Rig. 
Schr 



Vessels built at Ritchogue by Bo«s O. Perry Smith from 1850 to 1872. 

Tonnage. 
160 



Brig 
Schr 



Date. 
1850 

1853 
1854 

1855 
1856 
1857 
1858 
1859 
i860 
i860 
1864 
1864 
1865 
1865 
1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1872 



Name. 
Ida Maillor 
R. H. Vermilyea 
A. Mason 
J. A. Stanley 
T. D. Wagner 
Kate Merrill 
A. Stewart 
Phebe 
S. T. Baker 
Daniel Holmes 
John Shay 

Not named (when launched 
Harry Doremus 
Not named (when launched) 
Alida 

Ricardo Barros 
Minnie 
Phebe 
J. W. Boyle 



140 
340 
320 
476 
360 
170 
180 
300 

350 

480 

80 

85 

55 

70 

170 

360 

240 

120 



Total 4.556 
During the same period^he built 19 sloops for the oyster trade, ranging 
from 20 to 40 tons and averaging say 30 tons, or 570 in all, making the total 
tonnage constructed by him in that time something over 5,000. The larg- 
er vessels were employed in coastwise trade, as fruiters from the West 
Indies, or in other lines of foreign trade. Some of them have been remark- 
ably successful as sailors; thus: the R. H. Vermilyea made the trip from 
Cuba to New York in 6 days; the Phebe (2nd) made the trip from ban 
Bias to New York in 12 days, the quickest passage between the two ports; 
and others have made notably quick voyages. 

Edward Post built at Patchogue in 1882 a schooner yacht of about 
160 tons. In the same year Martenus Smith, son of O. P. Smith, built 
the schooner Grace Bailey, 1 20 tons. A very large number of sloops and 
small schooners, designed mostly for the oyster trade, have been built in 
and near Patchogue; any exact figures of number or tonnage would be im- 
possible, but the aggregate would probably count up several thousand tons. 
To Edward T, Moore, Surveyor of Customs at that port, I am indebted for 
the following: 

Statement of Tonnage at the Port of Patchogue on June 30, 1875, the 
year of its establishment as a Port of Delivery and each year thereafter. 

Date, No. of Vessels. Tonnage. 

June 30, 1875 57 934.00 

1875 134 2,523.12 

1877 161 2,716.96 

1878 179 2,766.00 

1879 209 2,925.26 

1880 207 2,730.39 

1881 201 2,485.70 



to8 APPENDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 

" 1882 202 2,415.42 

" 1883 208 3,611.45 

Other Soi'th Bay Ports. 
At Bellport several large schooners have been built, but 1 cannot give 
their names, etc. Numerous small schooners and sloops, chiefly for the' 
ovster trade or for bay freighting, have been built at Bellport, Moriches, 
PatchogLie, Sayville, Islip, Bay Shore, Babylon and Amityville, but the 
work of ascertaining their names and tonnage would bealmost an intermin- 
able and hopeless one. It is considered a low estimate to reckon the 
total tonnage of this class of vessels constructed on the shores o!' the Great 
South Bay in Suffolk County within the past hundred and hfty years at not 
less than fifty thousand tons — in fact, the strong probability may be that for 
the past fifty years an average of thirty boats, averaging twenty tons, ha\e 
been built each year. 

Port Jefferson. 
Lying at the head of a land-locked bay of deep and quiet water, with 
sufficiently bold shore, this place seems to have been designed by nature 
for a location adapted to the ship-builder's art. The earliest settlers recog- 
nized these natural advantages, and while yet there were but five houses at 
what was then known as Drowned Meadow, in 1797, John W;lsie is re- 
ported to have built on the east side of the harbor, at the place now locally 
called " Homan's Hollow," a sloop loyally named the King George — the 
forerunner of a large and noble fleet that, receiving their baptism and 
christening in the waters of Port Jefferson Bay have since borne the hailing 
name of Brookhaven to all the seas ploughed by the keels of commerce. 
Speaking commercially not less than in respect to ship-building, the chief 
if not the only drawback to a much greater development than has actually 
taken place in and on this bay, and in and on the bays that connect with 
it, has been the narrow and shoal channel at its entrance from the Sound. 
So far back as 1835, in October of that year i\iq Jeff ersonijn had an article 
in favor of an appropriation to build a breakwater at Drown Meadow, 
\Vhich name at a public meeting in the following March was changed to 
Port Jefferson. On other occasions public attention was drawn to the de- 
sirability of improving the entrance to this fine harbor, but no action was 
taken until the 41st Congress ordered a survey and upon a favorable report 
made an appropriation to begin the construction of a breakwater on the 
east side ol the channel. Subsequent appropriations have been made and 
expended, and the channel is materially improved, but a further sum is 
needed to be used for dredging a still wider and deeper passage-way. 

Through the unwearied efforts of Mr. James E. Bayles, himself prom- 
inently connected with the industry in question, who has had recourse to 
Custom House records so far as tliey were available, and to local records 
and traditions, verified whenever possible by conference with the oldest 
residents of the locality, 1 am enabled to present a list o" vessels built at 
Port Jefferson from the launching of " King George" down to the present 
time. It is believed to be substantially correct and complete though some 
of the dates, especially those between 1840 and 1850, may not be entirely 
accurate. Its preparation extended considerably over a year and required 
much patient labor. 

Capt. John Wilsie in 1799 or 1800 and following years built the 
schooner CuUoden and sloops Collector, Ontario, Oneida and Jane. 



APPENDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 



109 



Date 
1812 
1815 



Capt. Thomas Bell moved there m 1802 and built the following : 
Sloops, Argus, Hector, Hussa; ship Boyne and a gunboat of about 30 
tons for the U. S. Government, which was begun in 1807, but, not being 
called for sooner, was not finished till 1814. 

Richard Mather began in 1809. He built the following: 
Rig. Name. Date. Rig Name. 

Sloop Invincible 18 10 Sloop Independence 

" General Pike , 18 14 " Adeona 

Sloop, Catharine Rogers, 18 16. 

[He was the father of John R. Mather, the present noted builder, and 
was killed by an accidental fall from the last named vessel when nearly 
ready for launching. ] 

James Still in 1809 or 18 10 built the sloop Elector. 
Thomas Bayles in 18 16 built the sloop Beaver. 

Titus Mather. 
Name. Date. Rig. 

Calhoun 1823 Sloop 

Triumph (Nov.) 1824 Brig 

Sloop, Escort, 1826, 

Capt. Wm. L. Jones 
Name. Date. Rig. 

Virginius 1827 Schr. 

Charles E. Thorn 1834 Sloop 
Elisha Bayles. 
Date. Rig. 
1830 Sloop 
Edgar Brown. 
Date. Rig. 

1830 Sloop (smack) Vesta 

Edward Post. 

Name. 

Cybele 

Benjamin Brown. 



Rig. 

SIOOD 

Schr: 



Rig. 
Schr, 



Rig. 
Sloop 

Ris:. 



Name. Date 

Mongomery (Apl.) 1824 



Name. 
Alonzo 

Name. 



Amos Palmer 



Name, 
Pearl. 
Radiant 

Name. 
James Gorham 

Name. 



Sloop (t^mack) Uranius 

Rig. 
Sloop 



1825 



Date 
1862 
1836 

Date 

1834 

Date 
1832 

Date 
1829 



Rig- 
Sloop 



Name. 
Invincible 
Juvenile 
Export 
James Nelson 



Date. 

1832 
1834 
1840 
184) 



Rig. 
Sloop 



Name. 
Verille 
Ariel 



Date 

1838 



Rig. 
Rrig 



Sloop 
Schr 



Cumberland 

Register 

Pizarro 

C. L. Hulse 

Franklin Bell 



Sloop Nancy Anna, 1852. 
Isaac Ritch. 
Name. 
Aeolus- 
Lewis Hulse. 
1832 Sloop 
1835 Schr 

1841 



MaryH. Williams 1848 
Jacob Duryea 1851 



Date 

1839 



1853 



Editor 
Southerner 
Flordia 
Wm. Thomas 
D. C. Hulse 



1834 
1840 
1845 
1849 
1855 



no 


APPENDIX. SHIP BUIL] 


DING. 










Smith & Darling. 








Rig. 


Name. 


Date. 


Rig- 




Name. 


Date 


Brig 


Florida 


1832 


Brig 




Amelia Strong 


1833 


Sloop 


Emeline 


1833 


Sloop 




S. B. Packet 


1834 


" 


Empire 


1834 






Active 


1834 


Brig 


Darien 


r835 






Congress 


1835 


Schr 


Volta 


1836 






Unity 


1836 


Sloop 


Sylph 


1837 






Gleam 


1837 


1 ( 


Report 


1837 






Senate 


1838 


Brig 


Long Island 


1839 


Schr 




Smith & Darling 


1840 






Sylvester Smith. 








Rig. 


Name. 


Date. 


Rig. 




Name. 


Date 


Schr. 


Martha Maria 


1843 


Schr. 




Panama 


1844 


< < 


Alert 


1845 


( i 




J. E. Smith 


1845 


<< 


Aratus 


1846 


" 




Orianna 


1846 






Matthew Darling. 








Rig. 


Name. 


Date. 


Rig. 




Name. 


Date 


Schr. 


Maria M. Klots 


1842 


Schr. 




Charles Hopkins 


1842 


< ( 


Iowa 


1844 


" 




Mary Eliza 


1842 


(< 


Martha Jane 


1845 


< ( 




Gen. Marion 


1845 


(( 


Corbulo 


1846 


( ( 




Charles Mills 


1846 


<( 


Jacob Smith 


1847 


" 




Mary J. Peck 


1846 




Schooner, Oregon, 1848. 








Syl\t:ster Smith 


& ]. Darling. 




Rig. 




Name. 






Date 


Schr. 




Athal 


ia 






1846 






J. Darling. 








Rig- 




Name. 






Date 


Sloop 




, Clio 




184001 


:i84i 




Charles & J. 


Darling. 






Rig. 


Name. 


Date. 


Rig. 




Name. 


Date 


Schr. 


New Republic 


1848 


Schr. 




Governor 


1848 


Sloop 


Home 


1848 


<( 




William Tyson 


1849 


Schr. 


Aurora Borealis 


1849 


<( 




Galota 


1850 






Charles Darling 








Rig. 


Name. 


Date. 


Rig. 




Name. 


Date 


Schr. 


Sea Flower 


1851 


Schr. 




Selah B. Strong 


1852 




James M. & C L. Bayles. 






Rig- 


Name 






Tons 




Date 


Sloop 

t < 


Miami 

Native 






68 
61 




1836 

'1838 


Brig 


Bel del Mar 




125 




1839 


Schr. 


Denmai 


•k 




135 




1841 


Sloop 


Adelia 






48 




1843 


Schr. 


Belle 






126 


1845 or 


1846 


( > 


Telegrai 


ph 




143 




1846 


Sloop 


Mary R 


". Kirby 




65 




1846 


Schr. 


Edward L. Frost 




150 




1847 


t( 


William Ei CoIIis 




m 




«84r 





APPENDI.X". — «HIP BUILDING. 


Schr. (yacht) 


Breeze 


ICO 


" 


Rainbow 


H5 


( i 


Francis A. Baker 


80 


Sloop 


Phebe Ann 


42 


(( 


Eliza A. Jane 


76 


" 


Senator 


70 


Schr. 


C. L. Bayles 


154 


" 


James M. Bayles 


170 


" 


Maria L. Bavles 


176 


( i 


Willett S. Robbins 


180 


"■ 


Stephen H. Townsend 


260 


" 


Stephen Taber 


304 


" (yacht) 


Elliptic 


112 


" 


Breeze 


254 


Sloop 


Flying Arrow 


60 


Schr. 


Henry Janes 


261 


" 


Thomas W. Alcott 


203 


" 


Lucinda A. Bayles 


286 




James M. Bayles, 




Rig. 


Name. 


Tons. 


Schr. 


M. H. Reed 


221 


tt 


A. Hammond 


219 


< < 


Moonlight 


263 


Brig 


Mary E. Jones. 


265 


Schr. 


E. A. Conkling 


260 


Sloop 


Yankee 


85 


Schr. 


Anna Shepard 


167 


" 


Ann Amelia 


89 


i i 


Glenwood 


148 




Joseph Rowland. 




Rig- 


Name. 


Tons. 


Sloop (yacht) 


Irene 

L. M. Rowland 


59 


Rig. 


Name. 


Tons. 


Schr. 


Flora Temple 


23 


" 


Starlight 


32 




James M. Bayles & Son (J 


AMES E.) 


Rig. 


Name. 


Tons. 


Schr. 


Annie Lewis 


3^3 


<( 


Anna W. Collins 


20Q 


<< 


Julia E. Willetts 


243 


(( 


Julia A. Rider 


276 




New Tonnage. 


(( 


Annie V. Bergen 


184 


. < 


Katie J. Hoyt 


220 


it 


Ann E. Valentine 


316 


i < 


Circle 


42 


(< 


Matilda Brooks 


333 


(< 


George H. Mills 


2^6 


Brig 


Susan Bergen 


U7 



I ri 





1840 
1849 




1849 




1849 




1849 




1850 




1850 




1851 




1851 




1852 




1852 




1852 




1853 




1853 




1853 




1854 




I8S4 




1861 




Date 




1854 




1854 




1855 




1856 




1856 




1857 




1858 




1859 




1861 




Date 




1852 




Date 




1861 




1865 


Month 


Year 


July 


1863 


April 


1864 


July 


1864 


Dec. 


1864 


Jan. 


1865 


Aug. 


1865 


( i 


1866 


May 


1867 


July 


1867 


Aug. 


1867 


1 1 


1868 



112 



APPENDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 



Bark 
Schr. 



Steamer 

Bark 

Sloop 

Schr. 



Ship (whaler) 

Bark 

Schr. 



Brig 

Sloop (\ acht) 

Schr. 



Rig. 
Schr. 



Brig 

Schr. 
Sloop 

Schr. 



Carib 


294 


Oct. 


1868 


Henry A. Taber 


129 


June 


1869 


Alert 


[43 


( ( 


1870 


Jennie Rosalene 


342 


Aug 


1870 


Millie Frank 


60 


Sept. 


1870 


Henrietta 


30 


June 


1871 


Thomas R Ball 


430 


Aug. 


1871 


Thyra 


205 


Dec. 


1871 


Nomad 


476 


April 


1872 


Ada Rhame 


25 


May 


1872 


Eliza Rhodes 


25 


June 


1872 


William H. Keeney 


314. 


April 


1873 


Mary Emmor 


52 


June 


1873 


De Mory Gray 


402 


Nov. 


1873 


Rosa Eppinger 


293 


May 


1874 


Annie A. Booth 


208 


June 


1874 


Clara E. Bergen 


481 


Sept. 


1874 


James E. Bayles 


431 


Nov. 


1874 


Manuel R.Cuza 


298 


Oct. 


1875 


William E. Clowes 


571 


Dec. 


1875 


Eleanor 


35^ 


May. 


1876 


Horatio 


349 


July 


1877 


Fleetwing 


328 


Oct. 


1877 


Comet 


301 


Nov. 


1877 


Jimmie 


20 


June 


1878 


Nellie Floyd 


457 . 


March 


1879 


H. & J. Blendermann 


399 


Dec. 


1879 


Oracle N. 


415 


Jan. 


1880 


Transit 


30 


May 


1880 


Chatham 


"3 


July 


1880 


Waccamaw 


459 


Aug. 


1881 


Atalanta 


352 


Dec. 


ri88i 


Whitby 


30 • 


June 


1883 


Lillie Holmes 


407 


Sept. 


1882 


Ocean Child 


37 


Nov. 


1882 


Nellie W. Craig 


r468 


Aug. 


1883 


Elsie A. Bayles 


302 


Oct. 


1883 


Nettie Shipman 


322 


< < 


1884 


John R. Mather. 






Name. 






Date 


Caroline E. Thorn 






1838 


Alfred F. Thorn 






1839 


Excelsior 






1840 


Wm. L. Jones 


Tons. 




1841 


Lady Suffolk 


100 




1846 


Thomas A. Hawkins 






1849 


Wm. H. San ford 


98 




1850 


John R. Mather 






1851 


Magnolia 


139 




185a 


Neptune's Bride 


2o6 




1853 


War Stfeed 


153 




18^4 





APPINDIX. 


^SHIP BUILDING. 


"3 


<< 


Millard Fillmore 


240 


1856 


<< 


Willow Harp 




139 


1858 


It 


B. Jones 




216 


1861 


t< 


Wm. 


M. Jones 


374 


1871 


(< 


B. I. 


Hazard 




392 


1872 


Brig 


John 


McDermott 


564 


1878 


Schr. 


George R. Congdon 


450 


1879 


(( 


Bessie Whiting 


560 


1882 


<< 


D. K 


. Baker 




493 


1883 


<( 


J. H. 


Parker 




521 


1884 






C. 


L. Bayles. 




Big. 


Name. 


Tone. 


Date, Rig 


Name. Tons. 


Date. 


Schr. 


Edward Slade 


285 


'855 


Jeremiah Darling. 




<< 


Susan E. Jayne 


204 


1855 Bark 


James L. Davis 461 


1857 


<< 


Anna M. Edwards 


119 


1856 " 


D. Jex 222 


1858 


<( 


Reindeer 


197 


1856 " 


Holland 360 


1859 


Brig 


Yankee Blade 


275 


1857 Brig 


Eaglet 198 


1859 




Bayles & Wines. 




Darling & Wines. 




Schr. 


Ida A. Jayne 


211 


1863 Schr. 


C. M. Newins 384 


i860 


(( 


Lavinia Bell 


154 


1864 Brig 


Cacique 201 


i860 


" (yacht) John Swan 


30 


1865 Schr. 


S. C. Evans 281 


i860 


c< 


S. T. Wines 


224 


[864 Brig 


Water Lilly 197 


1861 


(( 


Madison Holmes 


i8q 


1864 Ahira Hawkins & Wm. Darling. 




C. L. Bayles & Son. 


Schr. 


Montezuma 120 


1847 


Schr. 


H. N. Squire 


308 


[867 " 


Northern Light 


1849 


Brig 


Helen M. Rowley 


390 


[867 " 


Francis H. Hopkins 


1848 


<( 


L. L. Squires 


425 


[868 " 


Esther Burr 


1850 


<i 


M, M. Francis 


439 


[869 " 


Merach 


1852 


Schr. 


Nymph 


140 


[870 Ahira Hawkins & J. L. Darling. 


( ( 


A. M. Dickerson 


166 


[871 Schr. 


S. L. Stevens 132 


1852 


< < 


Wm. H. Phare 


154 


871 " 


R. H. Wilson 198 


1853 


<< 


T. Harris Kirk 


350 


[873 " 


John L. Darling 199 


1854 


<( 


Emma Aery 


330 1 


874 " 


Naiad Queen 160 


1854 


( ( 


Addie Schlarfer 


178 ] 


874 


John E. Darling & Co. 






Bedell & Darling. 


Sloop Pearl 65 


1849 


Schr. 


J. W. McKee 


191 ] 


850 Schr. 


Rachel Jane 1 1 1 


1850 


11 


M. M, Freeman 


160 ] 


851 " 


L N. Seymour 71 


1853 


t ( 


Helen Mar 


195 ] 


852 " 


Copy 95 


1854 


<< 


Suwassett 


193 1 


852 " 


L. N. Godfrey 140 


1854 


<( 


Maria Jewett 


192 ] 


853 " 


Transit 297 


1855 


<< 


Ralph Post 


426 ] 


854 " 


Alexander Blue 131 


1856 


<< 


Sunny South 


227 1 


854 " 


LauraA. Burlingame 191 


1864 


<< 


John Roe 


297 ] 


854 


Henry Hallock. 




Bark 


Anna 


421 ] 


854 Schr. 


Narragansett 


1855 


Schr. 


Prowess 


267 ] 


855 " 


Sarah Mills 216 


1855 


< 1 


Challenge (about) 


265 1 


855 " 


Spencer D. 145 


1856 


" 


J. DarUng " 


300 ] 


856 " 


Estelle 167 


1857 


Bark 


Clara R. Sutil 


257 ] 


856 " 


Gen. Gilmore ^-^ 


1863 


<< 


Glenwood 


360 ] 


856 " 


Florence V. Turner 88 


1865 




John E. Smitii 


[. 


(( 


L,aurel 71 


1868 


Schr. 


Wm. D. Cargill 


190 1 


854 " 


Coral 34 


1878 


« 


Mary Emma 


257 1 


854 







114 



APPENDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 



Schr. 



Rig. Name. Tons- Date. 

Ahira Hawkins & E. Ketcham. 
Schr. Virginia 295 1856 

*■' Isabel Alberto 231 

" Anna C, Leverett 199 
Edward Hawkins. 
Schr. Island Belle 142 

Sloop Sarah F. Jayne 24 

Sylvester T. Wines. 
J. C. Havens 
L. A. VanBrunt 
Florence Shay 
Henrietta Hill 
H. S. Marlor 
T. D. Harrison 

Joseph J. Harris. 
Schr. James M. Holmes 205 
Quickstep 
(yacht) Halcyon 
Silver Spray 
J. J. Harris 
William Young 
Jane C. Harris 
Robert T. Clark 
Game Cock 
La Ninfa 
Mary C. Crowley 
John Marvin. 
^hr. Walter Smith 



44 
344 
405 

51 
350 
512 



132 

118 
141 

68 

44 

190 

61 

126 

70 



1859 

i860 

1854 
I85I 

1866 
1867 
1867 
1868 
1869 

1873 

1858 
1863 

1869 

1870 

I87I 
1872 

1873 
1873 

1877 
1878 



Rig. Name. Tons. Date, 
Emmett B. Darling. 

Schr. Mary Alice 35 

' ' Onward 5 2 

" West Side 153 

" H. S. Tuthill 43 

" Lillie Ernestine 54 

" Smith & Darling 44 

" Francis Smith 49 

" Charley Banks 46 

" Ilo 35 

" E. B. Darling 184 

" Mary C: Decker 92 

" Emma Southard 72 

" John Eastwood 48 

Sloop L. J. Dayton 25 

" B. H. Hageman 25 
Mather & Wood. 

Stmr. Hoyt Brothers (ab't) 45 



Schr. 



Addie B. 
Nonowantuc 
S. S. Brewster 
May Queen 

S. R. Bird. 
Luella Nickerson 



. 35 

226 

26 

25 



870 
871 
871 
872 
872 
873 
873 
873 
874 
874 
875 
877 
877 
879 
879 

881 
882 
882 
883 
883 
884 



25 1884 



31 



1866 



The foregoing list includes 61 sloops, 2 sloop smacks, 2 sloop yachts, 
215 schooners, 2 schooner ) achts, , 1 9 brigs, 9 barks, 2 ships, 6 steamers, i 
gunboat — with an aggregate, so far as stated, of 43,291 tons, to which add 
8, 230 for the vessels unreported, averaging sloops at 50 and schooners at 100 
tons (which figures are doubtless below rather than above the fact), and 
we have a total of 51,521 tons of shipping constructed at Port Jefferson. 

Abstract of Tonnage Built and Enrolled at the Port of Port Jefferson. 



Year. 


Tounage. 


Year. 


Tonnage . 


Year. 


Tonnage, 


1857* 


548 32 


1858 


828 36 


1859 


506 68 


1860 


812 74 


1861 


859 27 


1862 


28 49 


1863 


964 03 


1864 


1190 32 


1865 


1008 07 


1866 


1001 65 


1867 


1819 49 


1868 


585 70 


1869 


419 57 


1870* 


446 00 


1871* 


1166 00 


1872* 


339 50 


1873 


465 93 


1874 


3090 40 


1875 


961 32 


1876 


350 00 


1877 


1025 66 


187S 


738 90 


1879 


876 00 


1880 


558 00 


1881 


459 00 


1882 


1489 58 


1883 


764 00 



Total recorded 27 years 23,302 98. 

Office established in 1852 but no records previous to 1857. 

* Imcomplete. Since 1854 only about one-half the vessels built at 
Port Jefferson have been recorded in that office, a large number sailing 
under registers, in foreign trade, being recorded at New York or other ports. 



APPFNDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 



"5 



Tonnage Outstanding 
elusive, Omitting 



at the Close of each Fiscal Year, 1858 to 1883, In- 
Fractional Parts of Tons, for the Port of Port Jeffer- 



son. 



lear. 
1858 
1861 
1864 
1867 
1873 
1876 
1879 
1882 



Year. 
1859 
1862 
1865 
1868 
1874 
1877 
1880 
1883 



Tonnage. 



Year. 



Tonnage. 
14,225 
19,795 
29,476 
14,660 
15,273 
17,847 
11,435 
15,565 
* No abstracts on record for the years 1869, 1870 and 1871. 



Tonnage. 



14,910 
22,091 
17,073 
15,231 
17,527 
16,486 
12,503 
14,858 



1860 


16,716 


1863 


25,146 


1866 


12,806 


1872* 


14,850 


1875 


21,721 


1878 


12,986 


1881 


10,685 



NORTHPORT. 



Favored by nature with remarkably beautiful surroundings and oc- 
cupying an admirable position where a lovely valley descends to the shore 
of a large, deep and sheltered bay, Northport offers such obvious facilities for 
shipbuilding, that, as early as 1814, before the close of the last war with 
Great Britain and while yet there were but a handful of inhabitants — Bayles 
(Sketches of Suffolk County, p. 162) says that twenty years later, in 1834, 
there were only eight dwellings in the place — one or more vessels had been 
built there. From Mr. Wm. E. Parrotte I have the following list of vessels 
built at Northport between 18 14 and 1884, by parties other than the estab- 
lished builders and whose names are not given : 



Rig. 


Name. 


T. 


Dns. Rig. Name, 


Tons. 


Sloop Brilliant 




65 Sloop Export 


40 


<« 


Chancellor 




55 Schr. Coralla 


120 


« 


Angelina 




26 Sloop Peri 


35 


'* 


Remark 




60 " Martha Ann 


40 


« 


Elect 




80 Schr. Stephen Francis 


150 


« 


Gazelle 




25 " Eliza Katherine 


110 


>( 


H. T. Young 




65 " Kate 


140 


u 


Emma Smith 




60 Sloop Irene 


60 


« 


Bulldog 




10 " Water Witch 


40 


i< 


Harriet Amelia 




9 " Silas Wright 


160 


« 


Angeline 




12 " Martha 


40 


It 


Henry Herbert 




15 " Northport 


20 


« 


Crescent 




15 " Motto 


15 


« 


Kate Cannon 




60 " Alcamus 


60 


<( 


Idu Viola 




21 " Borealis 


70 


« 


Armenia 




25 " Grey Gull 


80 


« 


G. B. McClellan 




20 S. Prior Hartt. 




t( 


George Milner 




21 Tonnage and date not give: 


D. 


c 


Wanderer 




80 Sloop Fanny Kemble 




Schr. 


Viola 




69 «' A. Darling 




Sloop Katy Did 




10 " Alamonde 




K 


Unexpected 




9 Brig Caroline E. Piatt 




M 


Laurel 




10 Schr. Golden Eagle 




" (smaok) Nettie 




8 Sloop Lady Emil 




« 


Contest 




22 Schr. William Ellis 




i* 


/I-,.-.:!*- K.r 1 < 


Beebe) 


9 " Sea Bird 












Isaac ScuDDER Ketoham. 


" Tickler 




Dates not given, out commencing in " Maxon Rogers 






1820. 




« Alfred Chase 




Slooi 


) Constitution 




60 *' Jonas Warren 





« Planet 



70 Sloop Delaware 



Ii6 



APPENDIX.— ^HIP BUILDING. 



S. Pbioe Haett. 






Uig. Name, ' 


rons. 


Year 


Elg. N^me. Tons. 


Tear. 


Schr. S. S. Brown 


115 


1868 


Sloop Three Siaters 






Stmr. Pastime 


100 


1869 


,'f, Phebe Ann Levinus 






" Tourist 


100 


1869 


; *t Mischief 






" Passport 


100 


1873 


" Adelaide 






Sloop Pell 


30 


1874 


" William Middleton 






" Billard 


20 


1874 


" Chief 






Stmr. Ripple 


100 


1876 


" John Abeel 






Jesse Jaevis. 






Schr. Nettie 






Sloop Orange 


69 


1841 


'^ Eobert B. Coleman 






Schr. Detroit 


100 


1844 


" David Crocker 






Sloop Ann Strong 


60 


1844 


Sloop Sarah Elizabeth 






" (yacht) Hector 


14 


1847 


" Maltby 






" Johnny Leviness 


80 


1849 


" Lady Elizabeth 






Schr. Henry J. Scudder 


98 


1852 


Moses B. Haett. 






Sloop Robert Freeman 


20 


1853 


(Brother of S. Prior Hartt. 


) 


" Louise 


27 


1854 


Sloop Mary A, Smith 


65 


1849 Schr. (sm'k) Eliza L. Kogers 68 


1859 


Schr. Peerless 


175 




Shcr.(Pilot boat) Edna C. 


. 40 


1860 


" Wm. Cogswell 


235 




" Flying Fish 


46 


1860 


" Blackbird 


130 




Sloop Harriet 


20 


1860 


:. " Kingbird 


130 




Schr. Marianua 


100 


1862 


" Milton 


100 




Sloop Gleam 


58 


1862 


« J, M. Kissam 


90 




Schr. (smack) Petrel 


72 


1863 


Sloop George Edwin 


60 


1870 


" (yacht) Mattie 


50 


1863 


Edwin Leffbrts. 






Sloop Dictator 


19 


1863 


Sloop Mollie 


15 




" Bolton 


16 


1864 


" Sarah Louise 


30 




" Marianna 


22 


1865 


" Alvaretta 


35 




" Stanley Howard 


33 


1865 


" Sallie 


15 




Schr. Phil Sheridan 


128 


1866 


Schr. Eva Lewis 


100 


1867 


" (sm'k) Eliza J. Kings- 




Sloop Emma Brush 


60 




land 


58 


1867 


Sclir. Wm. W. Wood 


110 




" Racer 


87 


1868 


■•♦. Lillie Wilson 


80 




" Ella 


80 


1869 


" Wm, Miller 


175 




Sloop Lena Becar 


54 


1870 


*♦ George Edwin 


120 


1879 


Schr. J. S. Curtis 


228 


1870 


Erastus Haett. 






Sloop Cornelia 


70 


1870 


(Son of S. Prior Hartt.) 




Stmr. Wilmington 


76 


1870 


Sloop Harah Lucinda 


30 


1858 


Sloop Bride 


50 


1871 


" Elsie May 


35 


1861 


" (yacbt) Mischief 


30 


1872 


" Helen A. Brown 


65 


1864 


" (smack) Isaac Walton 29 


1874 


" John Eoach 


45 


1864 


" James Kirby 


24 


1875 


" Mary Suydam 


35 


1865 


" Louise 


19 


1879 


Stmr. L. J. N. Stark 


800 


1866 Stmr. F.E.Browne 


54 


1881 


Sloop A. Bi'ush 


65 


1867 


" Lizzie Woodend 


58 


1883 



Jesse Carll. 

Of all the Northport shipbuilders perhaps the most successful and 
widely known isBoss Jesse Carll, a native of Huntington town, who, when 17 
years old began an apprenticeship of five years with Boss James M. Bayles, 
of Port Jefterson. In 1855 he began business at the yard now occupied 
by him, then one-half its present size in connection with his brother David 
Carll. In that year they built for Seth R. Robbins, of Brooklyn, two 
sloop lighters each of about 80 tons, but their names are not given. In 
the following year they built for the noted Appleton Oaksmitt a fine bark 
of about 650 tons — a large vessel in those days, having a poop-deck and 
two full decks— named the Storm Bird. She was launched inside of 87 



APPENDIX. — ^SHIP BUILDING. II 7 

days from the laying of her keel, which was a notable instance of energy 
and expedition when the limited resources of the yard at that early day are 
considered. Through sharp practice they were cheated out of the fair profit 
they would have made on this contract, but the young firm were not dis- 
couraged thereby. They then paid their workman from |4 to $4. 50 per 
day. The partnership was dissolved in 1865, David returning and after- 
ward opening a yard at City Island. Jesse Carll has since 1865 built some 
large and highly successful vessels, which are regarded as specially excel- 
lent in respect to beauty of model, speed and staunchness. He did not 
preserve any record, however, and cannot give exact figures, but in the 
following list accuracy is approached sufficiently for all practical purposes, 
though in some cases the tonnage is not the registered number of tons but 
indicates the carrying capacity. 

Some of the more noteworthy vessels built by him, with incidents in 
their careers, are: Schooner Storm Cloud was sold and sent to California. 
Schooner Joseph E. Nickerson, a keel boat, built for Boston and Cape 
Cod parties, the builders retaining a quarter interest, was sold, and after 
15 to 20 years of service Mr. Carll, with Messrs. Yates & Porterfield, of N. 
Y. , the leading firm in the West African trade, bought her for that trade ; 
after making several voyages in command of Capt. Israel Whitman, she 
was seized by the natives while on a trading voyage up the Congo River and 
destroyed. Schooner Wm. Mazyck, built for Capt. Conklin, of Smith- 
town, was named after a Southern rice planter and employed in the 
trade to Georgetown, S. C. , after one trip, in 1861, to avoid seizure she 
had to make a hasty departure. Schooner Lucetta, designed expressly for 
the fruit trade, was the second vessel of her kind built up to that time. 
The years 1862-63 were dull in the building line, but the yard was fully oc- 
cupied with repairing and rebuilding, in which branch of the business there 
is less renown but more profit. In 1866, Mr. Carll, then running the yard 
alone, built his first vessel, the schooner Goddess. In 1867 he built for 
the Mediterranean fruit trade the schooner Jesse Carll, then declared to be 
the handsomest craft of her class sailing out of New York ; she was also a 
fast sailer, once making the trip from Gibraltar to Baltimore in 20 days and 
beating by 5 days the fastest English fruiter afloat ; several thousand dollars 
changed hands in bets on the passage, between the charterers of the two 
vessels ; she was finally stranded on the Spanish coast in a hurricane, 
while discharging cargo at an open roadstead. Brig Moses Rogers, com- 
manded by Capt. Edward M, Jones, of Cold Spring, in the Malaga trade, 
was of about 600 tons burden (383 registered). Schooner Ann E. Carll, 
built for Capt. Benj. Tyler, was a fine craft, and after ten years service, 
during which she was twice stranded — once off Norfolk, Va. , and once on 
Block Island — was finally wrecked on a low coral island 60 miles from 
Cienfuegos, Cuba ; it was inhabited only by alligators who came near devour- 
ing the crew before they could make fires to protect themselves, but at last 
the tables were turned (literally) and the crew, having used up all the pro- 
visions they had been able to save, were forced to eat the alligators ; the 
vessel was whole when they were taken off by a Spanish gunboat, but the 
expense of floating her would have been more than she was worth. Brig 
Osseo, of about 700 tons burden (454 register), 21 feet deep in after hatch, 
with two full decks and poop, was designed for the Mediterranean trade ; is a 
large and expensive vessel, costing about $40,000; is still running, and 



1 1 8 APPENDIX. — SHIP BUILDING. 

Mr. Carll retains an eighth interest in her. Bark Carrie L. Tyler, 565 
tons register, carrying about 750 tons, having two full decks and a poop, is 
engaged in foreign trade and Mr. Carll is a part owner. The schooner 
yacht Clio was rebuilt at his yard and her speed greatly increased by being 
lenghtened 12 feet and almost completely re-constructed. The schooner 
yacht Ariel was served the same way with a similar result; she is now on the Pa- 
cific, having sailed to California by way of the Straits of Magellan. Schooner 
Joseph Rudd, a double-decked, centreboard vessel, built for the Texas 
trade, owned bv the builder and Messrs. Woodhouse & Rudd, of N. Y. , 
achieved distinction by an accident unique of its kind and a deliverance 
equally notable. In a norther off the mouth of the Rio Grande she was car- 
ried two miles inland and left upright and tight, but so far from her " native 
element " that it seemed hopeless to think of her ever flouting again. Her 
owners expended $23,000 in digging a canal to the sea, and after a year's 
enforced absence she was again clasped to the bosom of the Guli, an ex- 
perience only paralleled by that of the brig Atalanta, built by J. M. Bayles 
& Son at Port Jefferson, which vessel was driven on the Mexican coast in 
a norther and lay there for nearly a year before she could be put afloat, 
without sustaining any appreciable strain or any worse apparent injury 
than the loss of part of her copper sheathing. Schooner Herbert E., built 
for Woodhouse & Rudd's Texas trade, carried about 600 tons, was valued, 
new, at $35,000. In 1880 bark Mary Greenwood, the largest vessel built 
at that vard, of about 1,100 tons capacity, was launched ; is now in Aus- 
tralia under command of Capt. Tooker, and Mr. Carll owns three-eighths 
of her, the balance being held by N. Y. parties. Schooner Fanny Brown, 
of about 800 tons capacity, having two full decks and a poop, is a fine 
vessel, principally owned in Richmond, Va. The last vessel launched 
from his yard is the schooner Allie R. Chester, built on his own accoun 
and still principally owned by him ; a vessel of somewhat similar type, 
size and style to the Fanny Brown, and commanded by Capt. George 
Tyler, of Smithtown. While no record has been kept, he thinks that in 
all, of large and small craft he has built or aided in building between 40 
and 50 ; but finding the margin for profit small on new work he has, for 
the past tvventy years, sought to do only enough of it to keep his men 
steadily employed ; his force of workmen during that time ranged from 25 
to 95. Three times in the same period he has had to make Southern trips 
for the benefit of his health, impaired by constant and close application to 
business. 

The lists below are made up mainly from memory and are not com- 
plete, but excepting tonnage as above noted, may be accepted as practically 
correct : 

Jesse & David Cakll. 

Tons. Year. Sloop (lighter) 80 1855 

"" 1834 " « 80 1855 

1835 Bark Storm Bird (about) 680 1856 
1837 Schr. Joseph E. Niekerson 350 1858 
1840 '• Storm Oloud 280 1858 

1846 " Helen Burton 150 1859 

1847 .« Orvletta 230 1S59 

1849 " Wm. Mazyck 140 1860 

1850 '« Lucetta 250 1861 
1878 
1882 



N. B. "White. 




Big. Name • 


Tons. 


Sloop Competent 


60 


" Ben Franklin 


75 


Sohr. Henry Chase 


65 


Sloop Roanoke 


80 


Schr. Globe 


136 


" T. B.Smith 


132 


Sloop 


25 


" Augusta 


36 


Schr. N. K. White 


30 


Sloop Idea 


25 



APPENDIX. — ^SHIPBUILDING. II9 

Jesse Cakll. Sloop Mary & Martha (ab't) 100 1871 

Schr. GoddoBs (ai. out) 250 1S66 " " 75 1872 

" Jesse Carll " 300 1867 Bark Carrie L. Tyler " 750 1873 

Brig Moses Rogers " 600 1867 Schr. Joseph Rudd " 450 1874 

(yacht) Addie Voorhis 55 1875 



Sohr. Gailiard 80 1868 

Sloop (lighter) " 90 1868 

" 90 1868 

Schr. Ann E. Carll " 400 1868 

" Francis E. Hallock". 350 1869 



Annie Webb 200 1876 

Herbert E. (ab't) 600 1877 

Frances 600 1878 

EmmaRitch " 400 1879 



Brif^i- Osseo " 700 1870 Bark Mary Greenwood " 1,100 1880 

Sloop Farmer 70 1870 Schr. Fanny Brown " 800 1883 

Schr. Florence 160 1871 " AUie R. Chester " 800 1884 

This makes a total, so far as stated, of 179 vessels, including 91 sloops, 
2 sloop yachts, 4 sloop lighters, i sloop smack, 58 schooners, 2 schooner 
yachts, i schooner pilot boat, 3 schooner smacks, 3 brigs, 3 barks, 8 
steamers. Reducing tonnage capacity where so given to average of regis- 
ter, there are of recorded tonnage built at Northport about 16, 500 tons, and 
allowing fair averages for the vessels whose tonnage is not given, the ag- 
gregate will be close upon 18,500 tons of shipping built at that port. 

Centreport. 
Eligibly situated at the head of Centreport Harbor, an offshoot from 
Northport Bay, this small but thriving village early engaged in the business 
of shipbuilding and car ied it on to a moderate extent, but in recent years 
little or none has been done there. Mr. Parrotte has kindly sent me the 
subjoining list of vessels built at Centreport between 1814 and 1884, but 
did not give names of builders or dates of launching : 

Rig. Name. Tons. Rig. Name. Tons- 

Sloop Enemy 25 Brig Buckley 150 

" Capital 50 Sloop Cinderella 60 

Schr. Consort 100 Schr. Intent 100 

Sloop Farmer 50 Sloop Gen. Lewis 55 

" Select 50 " Adelia 12 

" Lady Jackson 45 " Record 25 

Schr. Metamoras 40 " Brief 11 

A total of 14 vessels and ']']t, tons. 

East Setauket. 

Occupying a favorable location at the head of Setauket Harbor, which 
connects with Port Jefferson Bay, residents of this place engaged m ship- 
building on a small scale early in the present century, but I have not been 
able to get any data anterior to 1836, in which year BossNehemiah Hand, 
still a hale and vigorous man, widely known for the active and prominent 
part he has taken in commercial affairs and especially as a representative of 
the American Ship Owners and Masters' Association, began a long and highly 
successful career. In 1864 he associated with himself his son George S. 
Hand, and, after adding half a dozen fine boats to his fleet, in 1873 he re- 
tired leaving his business to be prosecuted by his son. During this long 
period of almost forty years he built many large, handsome, swift and 
staunch vessels, that were a credit to himself and an honor to the county ; 
some of them are still in active service and able to hold their own in comparison 
with later built craft, whether for speed or seaworthiness. He and his son 
own two sets of marine railways, which for twelve years past have been kept 



I20 APPENDIX. — SHIP BUILDING. 






pretty fully occupied with vessel 


s to be repaired or rebuilt. His 


list is a re- 


markable one, as follows : 










Nehemiah Hand. 


Brig T. W. Rowland 


471 


1855 


Rig. Name. 


Tons. 


Year. Bark Urania 


4('5 


1856 


Schr, Delight 


41 


1836 Schr. Andniraeda 


261 


1857 


Sloop Eliza Jayne 


35 


1837 BmiI< Palace 


368 


1859 


" Hardscrabbie 


74 


1839 Schr. Aldebaran 


180 


1860 


" Helen Jayne 


43 


1841 Brig Mary E. Rowland 


280 


1862 


Dart 


18 


1843 N. Hand & Son. 






" Comraerce 


84 


1844 Brig Ampricu< 


498 


1864 


Schr. Nancy Mills 


109 


1845 " Marv E. Thaver 


272 


1868 


" Mary A. RowlaDd 


135 


1847 Bark Desaldo 


492 


1870 


" Albemarle 


154 


1847 Brig Daisy 


476 


1871 


" Soutli Hamilton 


180 


1848 Barlceniine Tilos. Brooks 


4G0 


1872 


" Marietta Hand 


137 


1849 Schr. N. Hand 


191 


1873 


" Nassau 


169 


1850 Bark Ferris S. Thompson 


500 


1875 


Brig N. Hand 


263 


1851 Brig Irene 


475 


1877 


Sloop Chase 


181 


18.^2 Bark Lottie Moore 


938 


187y 


Schr. Flying Eagle 


182 


1853 " Monrovia 


360 


1879 


Bark 0. W. Poultnev 


487 


1854 Steamer Florence 


50 


1882 



The above lists make a total of 33 vessels launched from that yard, 
comprising one steamer, 7 barks, i barkentine, 7 brigs, 1 1 schooners, 6 
sloops, with an aggregate (registered) oi'8,964 tons. In 1870 the largest 
vessel ever completed in a Suffolk county — perhaps in a Long Island — yard 
was launched from the yard of David Bayles at East Setauket. This was 
the full-rigged ship Adorna, built by Capt. James Davis for the cotton 
trade between New Orleans and Liverpool and still engaged in foreign 
trade, though now sailing under the German flag. She registered 1,460 tons 
and has a capacity of over 2,000 tons. Capt. Davis, who was largely interest- 
ed in the cotton trade and had made a great deal of money, set out to build 
the largest vessel afloat, and spent much money and time in collecting 
material at Boss Bayles' yard ; work was begun and the frame put together 
for a ship that was to measure 235 feet in length, 40 feet beam, and 31 
feet in depth; but owing to some speculations that turned out disastrously 
Capt. Davis' resources were crippled and he was forced to abandon the un- 
dertaking ; the frame was finally sold to the New Jersey Railroad Co. , by 
whose direction it was cut down to a depth of 20 feet, finished as a propel- 
ler or steam coal barge, carrying over 2, 000 tons, and named the Wilkes- 
barre. 

Bayles & Bacon. 

Rig. Name. Tons. 

Sloop Emily 80 

Schr. Arrow 164 

" Edna C. 200 

Sloop Fashion 100 

David B. Bayles. 

Schr. E. W. Brown 290 

Francis Satterly 200 

" Marcenas Mon8on,jr.ll5 

" Charles T. Smith 117 



Schr. Wide W.)rld 200 


185* 


Year. " (3-masted) Fleet Wing 520 


1855 


1847 " Dexter Oaks 175 


1855 


1848 " D. B. Bayles 180 


1856 


1848 Sloop Meteor 50 


1857 


1849 Schr. Harriett Brewster 180 


1859 


Brig Conflict 80 


1859 


1850 Ship Adorna 1,460 


1869 


1851 '♦ (unfinished) after- 




1852 ward coal propeller 3,700 


1876 


1853 





appendix. — ship building. 121 

Setauket. 
Wm. Bacon. 
This builder constructed in all. forty vessels, ranging from looto 700 
tons burden, but is unable to give the exact tonnage, and application for 
further information proved resultless. 

At Riverhead John Davis built schooners Artist and Citizen, and 
sloops Olive Branch, Copy, Wm. Penn, John Adams, Sophronia, Marsh, 
and Signal. Frank Davis built schooner Mt^ry E. WoodhuU a.nd sloop 
yacht Peerless. 

Cold Spring. 

More or less of shipbuilding and ship-owning has been carried on 
upon the shores of this admirable harbor, one of the best on L. I. Sound, 
from an early date; but persistent inquiry has failed to elicit any very definite 
information respecting the vessels or their builders in early days. The bay 
and harbor form a fine shelter for both large and small craft, being deep, spa- 
cious and safe in all kinds of weather ; hence, naturally, the vicinity became 
the home of many seafaring men and has so continued since the settlement of 
the town. Beside the lists ofjrecenl builders some facts may be stated relating 
to the earlier part of the present century. In 1836 the sloop Premier of 
130 tons burden, Capt. Wood, traded from Cold Spring to South Carolina ; 
the sloop Mediterranean, 100 tons, Capt. Jones, was in the Albany trade. 
In 1846 the schooner Silas Wright, 130 tons, Capt. Conklin, traded with 
the West Indies ; the schooner J. B. Gager, Capt. Fowler, traded in the 
Gulf of Mexico. Since that date the following are some of the vessels 
hailing from that port: Schr. Sarah Maria, 175 tons, Rogers, Central 
America ; schr. Narcissa, 120 tons, Jones, Boston ; schr. John D. Jones, Ber- 
dell, Virginia ; brig John H. Jones, 500 tons. Mills, Mobile ; brig Mary 
E. Jones, Capt. E. M. Jones, Malaga ; schr. Eliza J. Raynor, Sally Mer- 
ritt, Wm. L. Peck and others. Previous to the War of 181 2, Cold Spring 
was largely engaged in the manufacture of flannels and broadcloths, and 
also ground large quantities of grain for eastern markets, freighting the 
grain from North Carolina and from the Hudson River. Cold Spring was 
the second place on the Sound shore at which a steamboat connection 
with New York was formed. 

Elwood Abkams. John Bennett. 

Rig. Name. Tons. Year. Rig. Na-^ie. Tons. Tear. 

Sloop E. A. Willis 35 1868 Schr. Sarah L. Merritt 67 1866 

Schr. Fortuna 37 1870 " Wm. L. Peck 78 1867 

Sloop Sarah F. looker 15 1872 Daniel Gillis. 

Schr. Hattie Chevalier 37 1873 Schr. Ann Dole 185 1868 

Stony Brook. 
More or less of shipbuilding has been carried on at this place from an 
early date. It occupies a favorable location on the east side of a good 
harbor projecting southward from the eastern side of Smithtown Bay. A 
portion of the village lies on the western side of the harbor, 
in the town of Smithtown. One of the prominent builders, Mr. 
David T. Bayles, who in recent years has practically retired from 
the business, in sending me his list does not claim for it entire ac- 
curacy as to tonnage by either the new or old custom house standard of 
measurement, or by what is called the "carpenter's measurement"; his 



ii2 



APPENDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 



books do not contain these data, and he has to rely on memory for the 
carrying capacity or dead weight tonnage. Since, some nine years ago. he 
turned his attention to other business, his yard, except for some repairing, 
lay idle till about i8 months ago, when he built for Greenport parties the 
handsome schooner B. F. Jayne. 





David T. Bayles. 




Rig. Name, 


Tons. 


Rig. 


Name. 


Tons. 


Schr. (S-raasted) Royal Arch 


600 


Schr. 


Reneloha Hallock 


250 


" Golden Ray 


140 




B. W. Hawkins 


500 


" Wm. R. Knighton 


800 




Village Queen 


300 


*' (3- masted) Anna 


800 




Luna 


170 


•' Caribbean 


350 




Golden Rule 


125 


" B. F. Jayne 


150 




Ocean U8 


380 







To the firm of Jonas Smith & Co. , shipping merchants at 66 South 
St., N. Y., lam indebted for the following compilation of vessels built at 
Stony Brook (other than those built by Boss D. T. Bayles), between the 
years 1835 and 1868 : 





Jonas Smith. 


Ebenezer Hallock. 




Rig. 


Name. 


Tons. Rig. Name. 


Tons. 


Schr. 


Repeater 


150 Schr. Monterey 


150 


(( 


Vindicator 


200 " Harriett Hallock 


175 


" 


Ann Smith (No. 1) 


100 " Julia M. Hallock 


180 


C( 


Regulus 


120 " Adell 


175 


<t 


Jonas Smith (No.l) 


200 Elias Smith. 




" 


L. P. Smith 


190 Brig Bell 


200 


<( 


Wm. H. Smith 


175 Schr. Olive 


160 


" 


Ann Smith (No. 2) 


120 Gideon Smith. . 




u 


J..nas Smith (No. 2) 


220 Schr. Equator ; 


100 


" 


A. J. DeRossette 


200 " Deception 


100 


" 


N. W. Smith 


275 " Sylph 


100 


" 


D. B. Warner 


260 Sloop Lady Helen 


90 


" 


Colonel Satterly 


230 " Isabella 


30 


c< 


Helene 


250 Daniel T. Williamson. 




« 


Charles Dennis 


280 Schr. Wm. S, Mount 


110 


ii 


L. S. Davis 


347 " Shepard A. Mount 


120 


" 


Target 


'360 «' Sea Witch 


120 


n 


Smithsonian 


.^90 Wm. Wells. 




«< 


Jonas Smith (No. 3) 


400 Schr. Topic 


120 


(' 


Clancy Smith 


441 " Oriel 


120 


Sloop 


» Emerald 


50 Sloop Brook haven 


90 


« 


Merchant 


50 " Apollo 


90 


k( 


Translation 


60 " Goldleaf 


60 


" 


Valor 


50 'Joel Ratnok. 




(( 


Bali u a 


110 Schr. Alabama 


150 




Charles D. Hallock. 


William Davis. 




Rig. 


Nacrfe. 


Tons. Schr. Sophia C. Davis 


200 


Schr. 


Charles D. Hallock 


150 Samuel Carman. 




M 


R. Hallock 


150 Schr. St. James 


130 


<( 


Julia A. Hallock 


180 " Martha M. Heath 


250 


Sloop Guide 


50 " Tanner 


320 


<< 


Pandora ■ 


50 " Alarech 


220 


(( 


Velocity 


90 Richard Davis. 




Sloop Capitol 


90 Sloop Ann Eliza ' 


50 


" 


Adonis 


75 " George H. Davis 


50 




Daniel Williamson. 


" Consul 


50 


OiOOj^ 


>' Illinois 


70 Jesse Davis, 




« 


Orator 


70 Sloop Copy 


50 



APPENDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 1 2 3 

At Setauket, on the stream below the grist mill, sloops Mechanic and 
Brilliant, each of about 60 tons, were built in 18 16 ; in the summer of that 
year (ever since known as the "cold summer"), mechanics at outdoor 
employments worked in their overcoats. 

Southampton Village. 
One of the places least hkely to be supposed a possible site for ship- 
building is the ancient village of Southampton, which, though bordering 
the Atlantic, has no direct water connection with it and would seem to of- 
fer no possible mode of putting afloat any vessels that might be built there. 
But to the right kind of will there is said always to be a way ; and fifty 
years ago this good old village had not only a man of will and original 
ideas in respect to shipbuilding, but also a connection, somewhat remote 
but direct and sufficient, with the ocean, through an inlet into Shinnecock 
Bay, into which bay Heady Creek flows from the west part of the village, 
making the eastern boundary of the Shinnecock Neck or Reservation. 
At the period referred to William French resided on what is called Hill 
street, which runs westerly toward the Neck, and at some litde distance 
from the creek. He was noted as a man of ideas, not always practical 
and, like others whose fate it is to be ahead of their times, was often 
laughed at and perhaps despised. But this did not prevent him from experi- 
menting and trying earnestly to carry out some of his new notions. Among 
other things he conceived the idea of building a three-masted centre-board 
schooner ; and the claim is made for him that he was the first to construct 
such a vessel. At any rate he started to build, in the wide street before 
his house, a vessel of light draught, primarily designed for the trade in pine 
wood which than constituted almqst the whole traffic between eastern Long 
Island and New Y9rk, and spent some time m collecting material from the 
native woods of the vicinity. At first he set out to build her himself with 
the help of some house carpenters, but after a while he found that this 
course would never do, and after spoiling much good timber he procured 
the help of a master shipbuilder and assistants. After a long time, during 
which he exhausted most of his available means, in October, 1835, by the 
help of many yoke of oxen, the novel craft-estrange in rig, in model and in 
construction, and doubly strange by reason of the apparent solecism in- 
volved in its being built in such a place — was trundled laboriously from the 
house of Mr. French down into the waters of Heady Creek and there, 
not without hitches and halts, was finally floated. She was loaded with 
wood and taken through the inlet out to sea and sailed to New York, 
where she and her cargo Vere sold to relieve her builder's pressing neces- 
sities. It is said that she attracted a great deal of attention and was much 
admired for her shape, fine lines and general cleverness of model ; she 
proved a fast sailer and was employed for a time in trade with Southern 
ports, making trips as far as New Orleans, and afterwards she went into the 
L. I. Sound trarde. An unverified tradition asserts that when last heard from 
she was a slaver on the Spanish Maiii . She measured about 80 tons burden. 
It is said that Mr. French took his idea of the extremely sharp bow which 
he gave to this vessel from observing, in N. Y. city, one of the famous clip- 
per ships which were beginning to be built in those days. She had two 
centreboards, and was named the Sarah Helen. 

About 8 or 9 years aftei wards Mr. French built at the same place an- 
other craft — a two-masted schooner, considerably smaller; which was 



124 



APPENDIX. — SHIP BUILDING. 



launched in the same way and was employed for some years on L. I, 
Sound ; her ultimate end is not known. The chief peculiarity about this 
vessel was the fact that instead of planking on the outside in the usual 
way, she was covered with boards or strips laid on crosswise and nailed at 
the intersections ; this idea did not work well, as she soon became leaky. 
She was named the Phantom. 



Greenport. 



John Port, 
at Greenhill. 
Eig. Name. 
8chr. Crysolite 
" Expedite 
" Charles Henry 
" J. Truman 
" Trade Wind 
Sloop Long Island 
" Antecedent 

Post & Hand. 
Sloop Sea Witch 

Silas E. Hand, 
South of I he Railroad. 
Schr. Wm. E. Dodge 
" Maria Morton 



Tons 



Schr. Wm. C. Kundson 
Sloop (smaek) J. H. Racey 
Wild Pigeon 
" Emma Johnson 
81 E. Thornhill. 

92 Sloop Grampus 
136 Harmon D. Bishop. 

Who had yards on both sides of Main 
street. 
Name. 
Jane A. Bishop 
Eastern Star 
Emeline Haight 
Hannah M. Johnson 
Siam 
Union 



Rig. 
Bark 
Brig 
Schr. 



12 



Tons. 

238 
105 



Slooj> 



As to many of the earlier built vessels, some of which are mentioned 
above while others are hidden from the light of investigation, few and in- 
complete details could be procured. Aside from those mentioned a num- 
ber were built at different limes, of which no data was obtainable. 

At Southold John C. Wells built the schooner John C. Wells and the 
sloops Fox and Defiance, Gilbert Davis built at New Suffolk the sloop 
Sarah Alice ; he also built two sloops at Greenport and rebuilt the sloop 
D. D. Webb. At Jamesport John Dimon built the schooner North State, 
2o tons. W. H. Corwin built the schooner Anadir, 73 tons, sloop Sylph, 
1 2 tons and sloop yacht Sirocco, 20 tons. Several other vessels, including 
SI number of large schooners, were built at New Suffolk and Jamesport. 

Richard Benjamin. Rig. Name. Tons. 

At Tanning's Point, south side of Sloop(smack)VVyaadankab't40 



Railroad 

Rig. Na'-e. Tons. 

Schr. Wm. H. Rowe 156 

" David G. Floy! 191 

Sloop Native 20 

At East Marion. 

Schr. Tamanlipas about 200 

" 0. & C. Brooks 135 



Harriet Foster 80 

Year. «' R. Benjamin 15 1865 

1855 Hiram Bishop. 

1856 [Between the years 1839 and 1855, 
1859 at the yard on the north side of Cen- 
tral avenue (formerly Amity street) 

1862 since occupied by his son Oliver H. 
1865 Bishop and now the property of 



At yard west side of Main street. Elizur Matthews, successor to Mat- 



Schr. Charles Henry 139 

" J. Freeman 132 

Sloop Long Island 88 

•' Jotin Post 38 

« D. F. Ives 5] 

" (smack) Silas Henry 40 

" Mary Elena 15 

" (yacht) Wavelet 20 

" Albatross 40 

" (smack) Oal Wells 39 



1847 thews & Fordham.| 
1847 Schr. Sterling 
1847 Brig Thos. Cook 
1849 do Pecoaic 
1849 Schr. John O. Ireland 

1849 do Sarah Strong 

1850 do Minerva 

1851 do Alida 

1852 do Almeda 

1852 do D. W. Dickinson 



43 



APPENDIX. — SHIP BUILDING, 



125 



Rig. Name. Tons. 

Schr. H. H. Talman 
do H. E. Bishop 
do Ruth Halsey 
do Rainbow 

Sloop (smack) Storm Child 43 

do Nearchus 46 

do Frances A, Bishop 13 

Schr. Henry , 57 

Sloop (smack) Reindeer 
do Margaret E. Wells 
Schr, Black Diamond 12© 

Sloop Mary Frances 

Boss Bishop also built the follow- 
ing other vessels : At Moriches the 
schooners Consul and Texas, and 
sloops TrafQc, Tradesman and Cadet. 
At bpeonk the sloops Three Brothers 
and David Lamphier. At Squire's 
Landing, Peconic Bay, schooner Ore- 
gon and sloop Lexington. At Wading 

River sloop . He also rebuilt 

out of other vessels the sloops Em- 
blem and Floyd S. Warner. 

In and near the same yard Calvin 
Horton built sloops Hannah Maria 
Webb, Van Buren, Odd Fellow and 
Greenport. 

H. E. & O. H. Bishop.' 
Sloop (smack) Sophia 1855 

Oliver H. Bishop. 

Sloop(omaok)ChariPS Miller 42 1860 

do B. C. Cartwright 14 1865 

do Dolphin 14 1866 

Schr. Ada M. Hallock 29 1866 

do smack A. M. C. Smith 44 1866 

do do W. W. Dickinson 44 1866 

do Mai shall O. Wells 88 1867 

do Olive Branch 59 1869 

do Maria L. Davis 61 18i59 

Stmr. Cambria 33 1871 

Sloop yacht Lulu 1871 

do Agnes 13 1871 

Schr. (3-masted) Charles W. 

Alcott 296 1872 
do do S. C. Tyron 423 1873 

do do Hattie M.Crowell 432 1873 
do do Allen Green 489 1874 

do do Lizzie Titus 200 1875 

Sloop (sharpy) Centennial 20 1876 
do Eva 8 1876 



Rig. Name. Tons. 

Schr. Lena R. Kaplan 76 1878 
Matthew & Fokdham (same yard.) 

Sloop Kansas City 25 1880 

Schr. (s'k) Samuel L. Storer 118 1882 

Ketcham & Smith. 
Schr. Aimira Wooley 224 1867 
do Emmu M. Fox 238 1867 
Sloop Mary A. Sisson 21 1867 
do Joseph Smith 12 1867 
Schr. S. B. Franklin 243 1868 
do (s'k) Thos. S. Rogers 62 1868 
do Abel C. Buckley 234 1869 
Smith & Bekbian. 
Sloop Swan 24 1870 
dfe I^evada 27 1870 
do J. E. DeBlois 27 1870 
Schr. Luther Eldridge 15 1871 
Sloop (yacht)Tho'8 G.Hunt 22 1872 
do do Annie Homan 22 1872 
Schr. (3-masted) Mary Free- 
land 398 1872 
Charles M. Smith. 
Barkentine Melville Bryant 594 1874 

Smith & Terry. 

Sjhr. (smack) Josie Reeve 45 1878 

BarkejJtine Wandering Jew 667 1880 
Schr. (3-m't'd) Freddie Hen- 

chen 326 1882 
do do Felton Beat re- 
built into the 

Barkentine Mascotte 594 1882 

Schr. (^mack) J. T.Becker 48 1884 

do do Peter Cooper 50 1884 

do do Julia L Grattan 52 1885 
Silas Hand — Greenport. 

Schr. Bleecker 120 1847 

:Jo S. E. Hand 200 1848 

do Sophia C. Davis 150 1849 

Sloop 8ea Wi.ch 100 1860 

Schr. Trade Wind 120 1851 

Silas E. Hand— Greenport. 

Sloop (smack) J. H. Kacey 60 1862 

do i'lying Cloud 80 1853 

do (smack) Wild Pigeun 50 1854 

Schr. Wm. E. Dodge 175 1855 

do C. B. Knudson 200 1856 

ao Maria Morton 125 1856 

do Jennie M. Vandeveer 100 1860 

Silas E. Hand— Bellport. 

do Raynor 100 1863 



Ji?< 



u 



V 



